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THE LIVES AND TIMES OF
THE POPES
INCLUDING THE COMPLETE GALLERY OF
THE PORTRAITS OF THE PONTIFFS
REPRODUCED FROM
"EFFIGIES PONTIFICUM ROMANORUM
DOMINICI BASAE"
BEING A SERIES OF VOLUMES GIVING THE HISTORY
OF THE WORLD DURING THE CHRISTIAN ERA
RETRANSLATED, REVISED, AND WRITTEN UP TO DATE FROM
LES VIES DES PAPES
BY
THE CHEVALIER ARTAUD DE MONTOR
IN TEN VOLUMES
NEW YORK
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
OF AMERICA
NOV 2 8 19*U
Nihil Obstat
REMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.L.
Imprimatur
88 9B JOHN M. FARLEY, D.D.
ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK
New York, February i, 1911
Copyright, igix, by
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
OF AMERICA
THE LIVES AND TIMES OF
THE POPES
THE LIVES AND TIMES
OF THE POPES
69
SAINT DEUSDEDIT— A.D. 615
SAINT DEUSDEDIT, son of Stephen, a subdeacon,
but not a subdeacon himself, though elected pope
notwithstanding, was created pontiff on the 19th of
October, 615. He endeavored to restore the ancient order
in the Church, and greatly distinguished himself by his piety
and his charity to the sick. Saint Deusdedit, meeting one of
the lepers, kissed him on the face; and all the holy legends
agree in saying that the leper was cured, owing to the
prayers of Saint Deusdedit. The gifts of celestial grace
descend only upon souls of supernatural piety.
In three ordinations Deusdedit created twenty-nine bish-
ops, thirteen priests, and five deacons. He governed the
Church nearly three years, and was interred at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant one year, one month, and
sixteen days.
3
I 03
4 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
70
SAINT BONIFACE V— A.D. 619
BONIFACE V, son of John Fummini, and bom at
Naples, was a cardinal-priest of Saint Sixtus, when
' he was elected on the 23d of December, 619. There
were at that time a great many priests, and this pope wished
no more ordained except to fill up vacancies caused by
deaths.
His memory is attacked by the heretics, because he
said in a letter that Jesus Christ redeemed us from original
sin alone. The letter in question was addressed to Edwin,
King of Northumberland, who, at the entreaty of his queen
Ethelburga, had embraced the Catholic faith. Novaes dis-
cusses the point, and declares that in the letter alluded to the
word "alone" does not occur, and that even if it were there,
Boniface would not therefore be censurable. The Holy
Father only meant to say that original sin is that for our
redemption from which Jesus Christ died. It is the only
sin common to all mankind, many of whom, including in-
fants, are free from any other.
Boniface opposed the authorities which sought to abolish
the right of asylum in the churches.
In two ordinations, in December, Boniface created twenty-
nine bishops, twenty-six or' twenty-seven priests, and four
deacons. He governed the Church five years and ten
months, and died in the month of October, 625, and was in-
terred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant only
five days, as the confirmation of the election of Honorius I,
the succeeding pope from Constantinople, had not to be
A
V
BOlNIFAClVvS *V*PP -NAPOLITAN VS
SAINT BONIFACE V 5
waited for. The exarch of Ravenna, who was at that time
in Rome, pretended to revive the old custom of giving con-
firmation in the name of the emperor.
But Catholicity was about to be opposed by new enemies.
If the great Gregory had courageously begun to establish
the temporal power of the popes, the successors of Gregory
were thenceforward to see a population eager in attacking
them and anxious to destroy them.
A man hidden in the far depths of the Arabian deserts
forged, in his obscurity, springs whose strength he knew
not, and whose prodigious working was to prostrate the au-
thority of the Greek empire and of the Persian kingdom,
and to change the face of the world. Italy herself was to see
the sectaries of Mahomet land upon her shore. The Arabian
could still command his proselytes, even when he was
obliged to fly from his country. That flight was more fa-
mous than the most celebrated victories, and served the Mus-
sulmans as an era from which to date their annals.
But the zeal of the Roman pontiffs never slackened, and
we shall see, under the reign of Gregory III, what chastise-
ments the faithful Catholics of Gaul, directed by that pope
and commanded by Charles Martel, inflicted upon the Ma-
hometans, who, no longer content with invading and dis-
turbing Italy, desired to establish themselves in France in
order to spread all the evils that accompany slavery imposed
by a pitiless conqueror.
6 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
71
HONORIUS I— A.D. 625
HONORIUS I, son of Petronius, of the illustrious
Delia Marra family of Capua, and a regular canon,
was elected pontiff on the 27th of October, 625.
By a letter of this pope to the republic of Venice, we are in-
formed that she then enjoyed the title of Most Christian.
There is still extant another very precious letter, in which
the pope exhorts the Northumbrian king, Edwin, firmly to
abide in that Catholic faith which he had recently embraced.
This pope sharply reprimanded the Scots, because, con-
trary to the rule established by the Council of Nice, they
celebrated Easter on the Sunday that fell on the fourteenth
day of the moon in March, and not on the Sunday which
followed.
In 630 he deposed from his see Fortunatus, Patriarch of
Grado, a heretic and traitor to the republic, and replaced
him by Primogenius, regionary subdeacon of the Roman
Church. Honorius extinguished the schism of the bishops
of Istria, who for seventy years had defended the three
chapters.
Honorius loved to erect magnificent churches and to re-
build such as were falling into ruins. He covered the roof
of Saint Peter's with bronze plates which the Emperor
Heraclius allowed to be taken from the temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus. He also adorned the altar of the holy apostle
with incrustations of silver.
In three ordinations, in December, Honorius created
eighty-one bishops and thirteen or thirty-one priests. He
HONORIUS I 7
governed the Church twelve years, eleven months, and six-
teen days. He died on the 12th of October, 638, and was
interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant one
year, seven months, and seventeen days.
The memory of this pontiff, say some historians, would
have been among the most glorious, had he not shown him-
self somewhat negligent in rooting out at its commence-
ment the heresy of the Monothelites, a branch of the Eu-
tychians, who attributed but one will, the divine will, to Jesus
Christ. The author of that heresy was Theodore, Bishop
of Faran, in Arabia. Honorius, it is said, deceived by the
letters of Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and a secret
professor of Monothelism, prohibited disputation upon the
question whether there were in Jesus two operations or
wills, so that those who should affirm that there was only
one should not seem to favor the party of Eutychius, which
party admitted only one nature in Christ; and that those
who affirmed that there were two should not appear to fol-
low the error of Nestorius, who obstinately persisted in
affirming two persons in Christ, in whom nevertheless
Honorius recognized two wills.
Some authors, calumniating Honorius, have declared him
a sectary of the Monothelites. The most that can be said is
that he was only guilty of negligence when he should have
extinguished that heresy, which did so much mischief to the
Church, and which was condemned by the sixth general
council, in 680.
To vindicate the honor of that pontiff, many authors of
many varieties of opinion have discussed the question; all
their various opinions are deserving of praise, but they are
not all equally solid. A remarkably reserved and concilia-
tory spirit dictated this note : "Cardinal John Torrecremata,
in his second book, De Ecclesia, chap. 93, thinks that Hono-
8 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
rius did not err at all, but that it was the sixth council that
committed 'an error of fact.' Misinterpreting the Catholic
letters of the pontiff to Sergius, Witasse, in his Treatise on
the Incarnation, quotes the authors who, after Torrecre-
mata, have defended that opinion.
"Witasse, nevertheless, attacks him. On that subject,
Bernard Desirant, hermit of Saint Augustine, published an
apology, entitled 'Pope Honorius defended, saving the in-
tegrity of the sixth council, or the History of Monothelism,
against the last subterfuge of the Jansenists.' Melchior
Cano took another way. He argued that Honorius, in writ-
ing to Sergius, really erred in the faith, but that his error
was that of a private man, and not of the pope. Tournely
and Thomassin subsequently adopted this opinion.
"Albert Pighi, the two cardinals Baronius and Bellar-
mine, Boucat, and Father Merlin, the author of a disserta-
tion which appeared in 1733, under the title of 'An Exact
and Detailed Examination of the Action of Honorius/ deny
that Honorius was condemned by the sixth council, and
think that, against the will of the Fathers in council, the
name of Honorius was inserted instead of that of Theodorus.
"But very distinguished men who have written on this
subject, such as Christianus Lupus, Jean Gamier, Natalis
Alexander, Pagi, Pierre de Marca, Jean-Baptiste Tama-
gnini, have received as genuine and sincere the acts of the
sixth council. Father John Gisbert, a Jesuit, printed at
Paris, in 1688, a defence of Honorius. He argues that the
letters of this pope to Sergius contain no definition of faith,
but only the precept not to make use of the term 'two opera-
tions.' 'Those letters,' says also that Father of the Society
of Jesus, 'when they were written, did not directly injure the
faith; the cause between the Catholics and the Monothelites
was still pending; and while a cause is pending, the judge
HONORIUS I 9
can impose silence on both parties, saving the right of one
of them. Subsequent to that, when the sixth council termi-
nated that controversy, the letters of the pontiff began di-
rectly to wound the faith ; for, where a controversy is at an end,
all hesitation or vacillation in the faith is contrary and offen-
sive to the faith. Consequently, although Honorius did not
adhere to the opinion of the Monothelites, the general coun-
cil could yet condemn his letters as documents which, issu-
ing from the Papal See, began to be injurious to the faith.'
"Father Francis Marchesi, of the Roman Oratory, in his
Clypeus Fortium, or a Defence of Honorius I, maintains,
with great vivacity, that Honorius was not condemned by
the sixth synod while it was general and oecumenical, that
is to say, until its eleventh session, but afterwards, when it
was already dissolved. Boucat declares for this opinion, in
his Treatise on the Incarnation, Dissertation 4; and Torre-
cremata, Bellarmine, and many others are of nearly the same
way of thinking.
"The most common opinion of modern authors is that
which Gamier defended, and to which Serry and Witasse
gave their adhesion, namely, that Honorius was not tainted
with Monothelism, and yet deserved condemnation because
of his imprudent dissimulation and his not putting down the
new heresy. In support of that view of the case, a letter is
quoted of Leo II to the Spanish bishops, which letter Labbe
has given in his Councils. Baronius deems the letter apoc-
ryphal, while Christianus Lupus believes it genuine.
"Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Bertoli, Bishop of Feltre, in his
excellent Apology for Honorius I, takes an absolutely new
way of defending Honorius, not from the charge of an error
as to the faith, for he will not for an instant concede that
error, but from any negligence of any kind whatever. His
arguments have such a manly solidity, and are adorned by
io LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
such powerful erudition, as to dissipate all doubt. All must
follow the road marked out by the prelate.,,
Honorius, towards the close of his reign, had to deplore
the progress of Mahometanism ; but God granted him the
consolation of seeing Croatia become Catholic, and the
Holy Cross taken from the Persians by the triumphant
armies of Heraclius.
72
SEVERINUS— A.D. 640
SEVERINUS, a Roman, son of Labienus, was elected
pontiff on the 28th of May, 640, after the Holy See
had been vacant more than a year and a half, because
the emperor would not ratify the election, as Severinus had
not approved the Ecthesis, or profession of faith, published
in 638, by the same emperor, which imposed silence on the
question of one or two wills in our Saviour. This latter the
Monothelites denied. In this manner they endeavored to
obtain a confirmation of their heresy.
The legates sent by Severinus perceived that they would
obtain nothing until that Ecthesis should be approved at
Rome; they went so far as to promise the signature of the
pope, and they returned to Italy after the confirmation of
the election of Severinus was obtained. But the pope
showed himself averse to all approbation on that point. It
was a decree in favor of the Monothelites; and that work
which Sergius had recommended was condemned by Seve-
rinus. Heraclius, offended by this, gave orders to his minis-
ters, and especially to Isaac, exarch of Ravenna, and Mauri-
tius, governor of Rome, to sack the treasury of the Lateran
\SEVERINVv£ ^I-PP-»OMANV»
JlOANNES-IIH-PONT-MAX DALMATA
US ■■Br •
JOHN IV ii
Church. They were to spare the Blessed Sacrament. Seve-
rinus, deeply afflicted, fell sick, and died after a pontificate
of three months and four days.
In one single ordination this pope created nine bishops.
He died on the ist of August, 640. He was esteemed for his
virtue, his piety, his mildness, and his love for the poor. He
was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant
four months and twenty-four days.
The refusal of Severinus, who was the acquaintance and
friend of Honorius, would, if needed, suffice to prove that
the celebrated letter written to Sergius by Honorius does not
permit the accusation of that pope as a Monothelist, and
only tended to impose upon all an absolute silence respect-
ing that anti-Catholic question.
73
JOHN IV— A.D. 640
JOHN IV, son of Venantius, of Zara, in Dalmatia, car-
dinal-deacon, was elected pontiff on the 24th of Decem-
ber, 640. Before he was consecrated, he addressed a
letter to the bishops of Scotia, and he condemned some
of them, who, on the subject of the celebration of Easter,
had not obeyed the decrees of the Council of Nice. At the
same time, he begged the faithful to beware of the heresies
of Pelagius, which had been revived in that country. Subse-
quently, in a council, he condemned the Ecthesis of Herac-
lius and the error of the Monothelites. He approved the
doctrine of Honorius I, as conformable to the true faith.
The heretics took unfair advantage of his letters to defend
12 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
their heresy; he declared every attack upon Honorius to be
unjust and calumnious. He sent to Constantine, son and
successor of Heraclius, a letter, begging that the new em-
peror would revoke the Ecthesis of his father, which was
done by Constans, successor to Constantine I, in 641.
In a question which arose between the priests and the
monks, as to the administration of the parish churches, the
pope decided that the latter might administer such as should
be committed to their charge.
John caused to be removed from his own country, Dal-
matia, often exposed to the incursions of the barbarians, the
remains of the holy martyrs Venantius, Anastasius, and
Maurus, and placed them in the Church of Saint John Lat-
eran, where they repose in the oratory, known, since 1575, as
the Madonna of Saint John.
The Holy Father created eighteen bishops, one priest, and
five deacons. He died on the 1 ith of October, 642, after gov-
erning the Church one year, nine months, and eighteen days,
and he was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained
vacant one month and thirteen days.
74
THEODORE I— A.D* 642
THEODORE I, a Greek by descent, but born at Jeru-
salem, was elected pontiff on the 24th of Novem-
ber, 642. He wrote to Paul, Patriarch of Constan-
tinople, synodal letters in which he ordered an examination
of the cause of Pyrrhus, a Monothelite, who then came to
Rome, abjured his error before the pope, and was received
THEODORE I 13
into the Catholic communion. When this same Pyrrhus
retracted his retractation, Theodore assembled a council in
648 and condemned the relapsed heretic. The sentence was
written with a pen dipped in a chalice which contained the
blood of our Lord. That ceremony was again practised by
the fourth Council of Constantinople, the eighth general
council, in which Leo pronounced sentence against Photius,
and many years afterwards, at the conclusion of peace be-
tween Charles the Bald, King of France, and Bernard,
Count of Toulouse.
In the same council Theodore condemned Paul, who had
instigated the Emperor Constantius to publish the Type or
Formulary.
In the Type the emperor forbade all disputation between
the Catholics and Monothelites. He threatened those who
should disobey with deposition, privation of trust, confisca-
tion, banishment, and even corporal punishment. The ab-
surd zeal of the author of this edict, invoking the name of
the emperor, considered no punishment too severe for those
who differed from it in opinion. We shall relate with some
particularity what occurred at Rome when that writing ap-
peared. It was thenceforth by the liveliest and most just re-
sistance that the popes manifested their independence. Their
political position appeared more secure than ever. The
Lombards lived more peacefully with the pontificate than
with the inhabitants of Ravenna. The exarchs gave them-
selves up to debauchery and to schemes of avarice and rob-
bery, as had been the case under the reign of Pope Severinus.
It was considered at Rome that the Ecthesis, though con-
tradictory in its terms and imposing silence on all, yet
seemed to pronounce in favor of the Catholics, and it was
probably for that reason that Pope Honorius, at the time of
the publication of the Ecthesis, maintained the prescribed
14 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
silence, and on the whole had acted rather as a private indi-
vidual than as pope; for while the Type left the question un-
determined, and absolutely forbade explanation on either
side, Catholics and heretics alike were to be silent. Pope
Theodore and his bishops, even the Lombard bishops, re-
sisted that edict, which they deemed dangerous, because,
said they, it closed the mouths of the orthodox, confounded
truth and error, and left the faith mute and in captivity.
Theodore caused the Church of Saint Valentine, on the
Flaminian Way, near the Ponte Molle, but now destroyed,
to be built and richly ornamented.
From the Nomentanian Way, where they were first in-
terred, he removed, to the Church of Saint Stephen the pro-
tomartyr, the bodies of the holy martyrs Primus and Felici-
anus. He also built two oratories, the one at Saint John
Lateran, and the other outside of Saint Paul's Gate; the
former dedicated to Saint Sebastian, and the latter to Saint
Euplus.
In one ordination, in December, Theodore created forty-
six bishops, twenty-one priests, and four deacons. He gov-
erned the Church six years, five months, and nine days, and
died on the 13th of May, 649.
He was affable to all, and especially to the poor. In some
martyrologies he has the title of Saint, but the Roman Mar-
tyrology does not give him that title, the necessary docu-
ments being wanting.
He was interred at the Vatican, and the Holy See re-
mained vacant one month and twenty-two days.
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SAINT MARTIN I 15
75
SAINT MARTIN I— A.D. 649
SAINT MARTIN I, son of Fabricius, a rich and noble
personage of Todi, a town in the States of the Church,
was elected pope on the 5th of July, 649, and conse-
crated without waiting for the consent of the emperor, who
afterwards accused him of taking the pontificate irregularly
and without his consent. This pope himself informs us, in
a letter which is contained in Labbe's Councils, that this was
the reason why the pontiff of Rome was persecuted. He
convoked a council in the Church of Saint John Lateran,
which was attended by five hundred bishops. Here the Ec-
thesis, where necessary, and the Type, were condemned.
Such declarations required martial support, and the Lom-
bard kings did not seem disposed to withhold it; they de-
clared for Pope Martin against the Emperor Constans. The
emperor endeavored, by stratagem, to punish the pope for
his opposition, and gave orders for his assassination. But
Martin never went forth except attended by a number of
the clergy, and the exarch Olympius, who had received the
order to commit the crime, failed to execute it. However,
being eager to obey, he one day sent to beg that the pope
would give him communion in the Church of Saint John
Lateran. Constant watch was kept for designs against the
Holy Father. The bishops were foremost in showing zeal
and eagerness to honor and serve the pontiff. No one sup-
posed that Olympius, clothed in the great dignity of exarch,
would thus draw the pope into an ambush, and dare to com-
mit a sacrilege in the church itself. Nevertheless, as the
16 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
faithful at that time received communion at the place in the
church where they prayed, and as the pontiff carried it *o
them, as at the present time it is carried only to the pope in
the Roman ceremonial, Olympius was to stand apart, sur-
rounded by his guards, and his personal attendant was ready
to stab the pontiff at the moment when he stooped to pro-
nounce the words of communion. The pope, attended by
his bishops, advanced, and Olympius knelt to receive the
communion, but the assassin was appalled, and Martin re-
tired unmolested. Olympius demanded why his attendant
had not killed the pope. He replied that at the moment when
the communion commenced he seemed to be suddenly
stricken with blindness, and, in his agitation and a trembling
which he could not control, it seemed to him that the pope
disappeared. Olympius, who already began to feel some
remorse for the crime that he had contemplated, did not
punish his attendant, but, on the following day, threw him-
self at the pope's feet, confessed the horrible project of as-
sassination, confided to him the order that had been sent
from Constantinople, promised not to execute it, and solic-
ited his pardon. Martin, much affected, raised Olympius
from the ground, embraced and pardoned him. Constans
recalled Olympius from his exarchate, and sent him to Sicily
to fight the Mussulmans, who had already invaded that
island. Theodore Calliopas was appointed to succeed Olym-
pius in the exarchate, and ordered to reside in Rome, to
execute important orders. Calliopas arrived with the deter-
mination to obey the severest orders.
Italy, though subject to different masters, had but one
feeling towards Pope Martin. He was a pontiff of eminent
piety, patient in bearing wrongs, and inflexible in his desire
to defend the faith. Simple and frugal in his expenses, he
was sumptuous only in his alms. He reconciled differences,
SAINT MARTIN I 17
and maintained the union essential to preserve Italy from
useless disasters.
Men never spoke unmoved of the spectacle of the con-
science-stricken assassin, of the remorse of Olympius, and
the impious obstinacy of the emperor; the words of Callio-
pas were noted, his fury or his treachery was everywhere
dreaded, on the public ways, in the palaces, in the proces-
sions, and even in the very sanctuary.
Martin acquired, by a new title, the veneration and grati-
tude of the Christians, when he sent to Sicily considerable
sums to ransom the unfortunate Christian inhabitants,
whom the Saracens had reduced to slavery after a defeat of
which Constans was the real author, because he deprived
Olympius of the means of defending the towns.
Here we must remark that the custom of the Mussulmans
to reduce the vanquished to slavery compelled the Chris-
tians, notwithstanding the representations of the popes, to
resort to reprisals, and to re-establish, at least during the
wars with the Turks, the institution of slavery.
Martin, then, was regarded at Rome as an angel of peace,
and as a worthy successor of the apostles ; but as soon as he
lost the displeasure of the emperor, the court could see in
Martin only a malignant and dangerous man, a pontiff des-
titute of virtue, and a rebellious subject. When he sent
money to the Saracens for the ransom of Greeks and Ital-
ians, and even the soldiers of Olympius, the pope became, in
their eyes, an enemy of the emperor, seeking to deliver Italy
to the Saracens.
Calliopas did not delegate to another, as Olympius had,
the task of gratifying the emperor. He strengthened the
military posts along the intrenchments erected by Aurelian,
in the form of an arm on the right and left of the tomb of
Adrian, on the bank of the Tiber, and now known as the
11
18 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Castle of Sant' Angelo; he appeared in public, escorted by
soldiers and by Theodore Pellurius, chamberlain of the em-
peror, who was to receive the person of Martin when he
should be seized. The pope fell sick. Calliopas sent an officer
to him, who said : "The exarch learns that the pontifical pal-
ace has become a garrison, where arms and stones are col-
lected; he knows no cause for this, but he cannot refrain
from condemning such measures as preparations for revolt."
The pope ordered the officer to be shown over the palace,
to convince him that there were neither weapons nor stones
there. The exarch had adopted the stratagem to learn
whether the palace had any means of defence. Satisfied on
that point by the report of his officer, Calliopas no longer
concealed his designs. Martin then had his bed removed
into the church itself, as into an inviolable asylum. Callio-
pas broke in the doors and rushed in, followed by his sol-
diery, shouting and striking their shields with their swords.
He destroyed the candlesticks, the tapers, and the seats, and
placed soldiers around the bed of the almost dying pontiff.
He then communicated to the clergy a letter of the emperor,
ordering the election of another pope, on the ground that
Martin was an intruder. Then, in spite of the cries of the
clergy, who pressed around their father, whom they wished
to accompany, and from whom they implored not to be sepa-
rated, he seized the person of the pontiff and carried him
away a prisoner.
On the following day Martin was delivered into the hands
of Pellurius, who threw him into a bark on the Tiber, allow-
ing him to take nothing with him but his torn clothes and a
drinking-cup. The chamberlain took his victim to Porto,
thence to Messina, where a vessel waited to take him to
Constantinople.
The voyage was prolonged, in order to weary out the
SAINT MARTIN I 19
patience of Martin, and the vessel was kept three months
on the coast of Calabria. Suffering from a dysentery which
enfeebled him extremely, and shrinking from even the most
nourishing food, nothing was allowed the pontiff except the
coarse food of the common sailors.
If priests, or the faithful in the neighboring places,
brought him any refreshment, they were ill-treated, and
told : "You must be enemies of the emperor, as you love this
man." At length the vessel sailed for Naxos, where the pon-
tiff was allowed to go on shore, but only to be imprisoned in
a house in the town, where he was kept for an entire year.
On the 17th of September, 654, Martin, dragged violently
from his prison, arrived at Constantinople. The clergy
at Rome, and the Lombards at Pavia, had written to com-
mend Saint Martin to the emperor ; but those entreaties only
increased the fury of the heretic. He ordered Martin to be
kept on the shore a whole day, lying on a mat and exposed to
the insults of the populace. At last, confined in prison, he
was harshly questioned by the emperor, deprived of the pal-
lium, dragged through the streets and courts with a chain
round his neck, and chained to his jailer, as an indication
that he was condemned to death. The executioner carried
before Martin the headsman's sword. Staggering with
weakness, and marking his passage with tracks of blood, he
was then cast into another prison, where he would have died
of cold had not his guards taken compassion upon him. At
the end of three months he was transported to Cherson, then
the place of exile of great criminals. Here this noble pontiff
died of fatigue and suffering, on the 16th of September, 655.
The Romans had elected Pope Eugenius during the life of
Martin, who, from his Cherson prison, approved the elec-
tion, in order that the chair of Peter should not remain
vacant.
20 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Thus ended the life of Martin, a worthy, learned, and
courageous pontiff, firm in the opinions that he had pro-
fessed, and in the principles of order that all Italy main-
tained against the Greek rhetors, even in that state of politi-
cal dismemberment and that host of reciprocal capitulations
to which she was reduced.
As it is requisite to establish the duration of the pontifi-
cate of Martin, the decision of the Diario of Rome is fol-
lowed. It states that Martin governed the Church six years,
two months, and twelve days. Novaes gives this reign only
five years, two months, and three days, basing his estimate
on the opinion of those authors who maintained that Martin
ceased to be pope after that election of Eugenius I which
he approved of in prison.
In two ordinations, in December, Martin, previous to his
exile, had created thirty-three bishops, five or eleven priests,
and five deacons.
His body was taken to Rome and deposited in the Church
of Saint Martin a' i Monti. The Latins celebrate his feast on
the 1 2th, and the Greeks the day of his death, and also on the
13th of April, with great solemnity.
Reckoning from the departure of Martin to the election of
Eugenius, the Holy See remained vacant one year, two
months, and twenty days.
a . , m
EVGENIVv^ *PRIMVv^ - R OMANVk^
EUGENE I 21
76
EUGENE I— A.D. 654
EUGENE I, a Roman, was elected on the 8th of Sep-
tember, 654, with the consent of the still living but
imprisoned pope, Saint Martin I. The Roman
clergy were forced to this step by fear of seeing the election
of a Monothelite pontiff. Cardinal Baronius thinks that
Eugene, during the life of Martin, was only that pontiff's
vicar, and did not become truly a pope until Martin's death.
Feller, in the short article that he has devoted to Eugene,
says briefly : "Eugene was vicar-general of the Church dur-
ing the captivity of Pope Saint Martin, and succeeded him
in the pontificate in 656."
Peter, successor of Pyrrhus in the patriarchate of Constan-
tinople, and an ardent abettor of the Monothelites, hoped to
baffle the vigilance of Eugene in exercising the functions of
pontiff, and sent him, according to ancient custom, the sy-
nodical letter. It was full of cunning and treacherous ex-
pressions as to the wills and operations of Christ, and was
calculated to impose upon any one who read it without seri-
ous attention. The Roman clergy, accustomed to distrust
Greek faith, and justly indignant against the patriarchs of
Byzantium, the authors of the sufferings of Pope Martin,
persuaded Eugene to abstain from celebrating Mass until
he solemnly promised neither to receive nor to approve the
synodical letter. Eugene, who needed not that advice, firmly
rejected the letter as suspicious and as secretly heretical ; he
sent his own synodical to Constantinople, and ended by con-
demning his own apocrisiaries at the imperial court, who,
22 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
seduced by the patriarch, had begun to stray from the Cath-
olic faith.
This pontiff died on the 2d of June, 657, and was buried at
the Vatican. He governed the Church, reckoning from the
year 654, two years, eight months, and twenty-four days.
In two ordinations he created twenty-two bishops. The
Holy See was vacant two months and nine days.
77
SAINT VITALIAN— A.D. 657
SAINT VITALIAN, son of Anastasius Pontracius, of
Legni, a town in the Roman Campagna, or born, ac-
cording to others, at Svernia, a castle in the Abruzzi,
was elected pontiff on the nth of August, 657. He immedi-
ately despatched his legates to the Emperor Constans with
a synodal letter, announcing his election, and exhorting him
to abandon the Monothelites. The legates were well re-
ceived, and brought back, as a gift to the Church of Saint
Peter, the Gospels covered with gold and precious stones.
The Holy Father received the present with marks of joy.
Meanwhile Constans resolved to abandon Constantinople,
expel the Lombards from Italy, and re-establish Rome as
the seat of the empire. "The mother," said he, "deserves
more consideration than the daughter." He therefore fitted
out a fleet, and embarked his treasures about the year 662;
he directed his empress, whose name history has not pre-
served, to join him in the port, with their three sons, Con-
stantine Pogonatus, Heraclius, and Tiberius. But Andreas,
his chamberlain, and Theodorus of Colonos stirred up the
SAINT VITALIAN 23
populace, who felt bound to show their detestation for a
tyrant combining in himself all the cruelty of Nero, Corn-
modus, and Heliogabalus. The Byzantines accordingly pre-
vented the family of Constans from joining him. This did
not for an instant turn him from his purpose. He mounted
to the deck of his vessel, spat at the city, and immediately
set sail. After wintering at Athens, he set out for Italy early
in spring, and reached Rome on the 5th of July, in the year
663, and remained there for a few days. The emperor was
continually boasting that he would destroy the Lombards,
but soon renounced all hope. Pope Vitalian, at the head of
his clergy, went out to meet the emperor, and conducted
him to the Church of Saint Peter, where the dissembler, in
order to mask his evil intentions, left a rich present. Subse-
quently he visited Saint Mary Major, where also he made an
offering. On the following day he again went to Saint
Peter's, which he surrounded with his troops. He heard
Mass, and laid upon the altar a piece of cloth of gold. On
the following Sunday he again heard Mass at Saint Peter's,
and after the sacrifice the emperor and the pope embraced
and bade each other farewell. This was the twelfth day
after the arrival of Constans. Up to this time he had dis-
played signs only of devotion and pious liberality. But the
Lombards had defeated his rear-guard at Naples, which de-
prived him of his hope of remaining at Rome. Before leav-
ing the city, he pillaged the churches, took back all the pres-
ents he had made, and carried off all that was most precious
in the city. He had been solicited to adorn the Pantheon,
transformed into a church in 608, by Pope Boniface IV, with
the permission of the Emperor Phocas. But Constans II
preferred plundering that temple of all the metal plates on
the roof. Thus a Roman emperor was guilty of greater vio-
lence than can be charged on the Goths and Vandals. He
24 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
immediately hastened away with all his plunder to Syracuse.
Such conduct could not fail to strengthen the power of the
popes in Italy.
Platina states that Vitalian introduced the use of organs
in churches for divine service; others attribute that custom
to Saint Damasus, but the prevailing, if not the correct,
opinion attributes it to Saint Vitalian. Moreri states that
organs were invented in the time of Saint Aldric, Bishop of
Mans, who died in 856 and was among the first to place or-
gans in churches. But Ladvocat says that the invention was
earlier by four centuries, inasmuch as Claudian describes an
organ. In fact, it is certain that, before Pope Saint Vitalian,
Venantius Fortunatus, who died in 606, says, with reference
to Saint Germain, Bishop of Paris, that in his time there
were organs in the churches of that city. The following
verses show that Fortunatus was acquainted with organs :
" Exiguis attemperat organa cannis,
Ructat ab ore tubam —
Cymbalise Voces —
Fistula dulce sonat."
Bingham affirms that organs were not known before the
time of Saint Thomas Aquinas. But such an opinion cannot
possibly be sustained.
Saint Vitalian sent back to the church of Lappa, in Candia,
John, who had appealed to the universal pontiff from the
sentence of deposition pronounced by his metropolitan,
Paul. The pontiff excommunicated Maurus, Bishop of Ra-
venna, who, proud of the favor of the exarch, refused to ap-
pear at Rome to answer an accusation, and, shaking off the
authority of the Roman Church, had solicited and obtained
from Constans a decree declaring Ravenna an autocephalic
church.
SAINT VITALIAN 25
The Holy Father, in four ordinations, created ninety-
seven bishops, twenty-two priests, and ten deacons. He
governed the Church fourteen years and ten months, and
died on the 27th of January, 672.
In erudition Vitalian may bear comparison with the most
learned pontiffs ; he was inferior to none of them in zeal for
the propagation of religion, and in courage for its defence.
He was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained
vacant two months and twenty-four days.
The Emperor Constans, while in such constant dread of
the Lombards, seems to have had no fear of a far different
danger which was one day to threaten his successors in their
own capital.
The doctrine of Mahomet has caused so many evils to the
Holy See, and has given it so many opportunities of display-
ing its constancy and its courage, that it merits especial at-
tention here.
Mahomet, at twelve years of age, was instructed at Bosra
by a Nestorian monk, whose name, according to some East-
ern authors, was Felix, son of Aba-Absalibi, driven from
Constantinople, on account of his errors, at the time when
the Nestorians had lost all credit in that city. This monk,
Felix, shared the errors of the Nestorians, and he gave Ma-
homet his own gross idea of the Christian religion. The
seed germinated in the bosom of Mahomet; at first he felt
horror of the idolatry in which he had been born, and that
feeling being sharpened by ambition, he conceived the auda-
cious design of reforming the religion of Arabia and making
himself master of the country.
It was to Felix that Mahomet, who could neither read nor
write, owed many passages in the Koran that prove an in-
direct and imperfect acquaintance with the dogmas of Chris-
tianity. According to M. de Saint Martin, Felix, not to be
26 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
an utter apostate, induced the impostor so far to compromise
matters as to confess Christ to be a prophet and the Son of
God.
During the latter years of Mahomet's life began that cruel
war, which continued for eight hundred years, between the
Mussulmans and the Greek empire. This war occasioned
the crusades, which cost France Saint Louis, and, inter-
rupted only by brief intervals, it covered with its ravages
Asia, Africa, and especially Italy, where the Saracens, land-
ing in 846, advanced almost to the walls of Rome. The name
of Saracens does not come from Sara, with which their
origin has no connection, but from the Arabic word sharq,
which signifies east. From sharq is derived sharqiia, that is
to say, Orientals.
78
ADEODATUS—A.D. 672
A DEODATUS, by many authors called Deusdedit II,
LJL was the son of Jovian, and was a Benedictine
-X. JL monk of Saint Erasmus of Rome, on the Celian
Mount, and afterwards cardinal-priest. He was elected
pontiff on the 2 2d of April, 672. He confirmed to the
Venetians their right to elect their doge. That fact is a
proof of the agreement which then subsisted between Rome
and Venice. The Venetians, who, to rid themselves from
the disturbances of democratic anarchy, had wisely resolved
to choose for themselves a more concentrated and more
stable government, could do no better than procure for their
new constitution a sacred sanction, which could at once awe
the tumultuous multitude, and give the Venetians a new
ADEODATV^ -PP -POMANVv^
ADEODATUS 27
title to disengage themselves the more frankly from the
servitude in which they were kept by the emperors of the
East. On the other hand, the pontiff must have seen with
satisfaction a free people coming to him to implore an in-
vestiture that it believed to be necessary.
Adeodatus ratified the privilege granted by Crotpert,
Bishop of Tours, to the monastery of Saint Martin, which
privilege consisted in freeing that monastery from the au-
thority of the ordinary. Feller says that Adeodatus was the
first who employed in his letters the formula, "Salutem et
apostolicam benedictionem."
Anastasius the Librarian describes Adeodatus as a pontiff
of mild disposition, affable, liberal, and compassionate to the
poor.
In one ordination, in December, he created six, or, as some
authors say, forty-six bishops, fourteen priests, and five dea-
cons. He governed the Church four years, two months, and
a few days. He was interred in Saint Peter's. The Holy
See remained vacant four months and five days.
79
SAINT DONUS I— A.D. 676
DONUS I is also called Domno, Domnione, Cono, and
Cunone. He was a Roman, the son of Mauritius,
and was elected pontiff on the 1st of November, 676.
Reparatus, Archbishop of Ravenna, wiser than his predeces-
sor Maur, recognized the obedience that he owed to the
Holy See. Donus magnificently ornamented with marble
tables the atrium of the Church of Saint Peter, which
28 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
was named Paradise. He restored the Basilica of Saint
Paul. Anastasius speaks of a comet that was visible for
three months during the reign of this pontiff. The Emperor
Constantine Pogonatus, after having concluded quite a
glorious peace with the Saracens, who were animated with
the conquering fury of their founder, Mahomet, desired to
restore calm to the Greek and Latin churches, and asked
that the Holy See should convoke a new oecumenical council,
in which the great question upon the will of Christ should be
solemnly debated. He desired that the faithful should at
length receive a certain rule for their faith. The letters of
Constantine did not arrive until after the death of Donus,
and were referred to his successor.
Donus created, in one ordination, six bishops, ten priests,
and five deacons. He died on the nth of April, 678, and
was buried at Saint Peter's. The Holy See was vacant two
months and fifteen days.
80
SAINT AGATHO— A.D. 678
SAINT AGATHO, son of Pannonius Amon, was born,
according to some, at Aquilano, at Valle Siculiana, in
the Abruzzi. Bury says that this pope was a Sicilian,
and there is reason to believe that such is the fact. Being a
Benedictine monk, he lived in the monastery of Saint Ermes,
at Palermo. He was elected pontiff on the 27th of June, 678.
He was then a hundred and three years old.
After receiving the letters of Constantine, written with
such pious intentions, Agatho held a synod at Rome in
the year 679. It was attended by a hundred and twenty-
I AGATHO * 1 - PAPA-sSICVLV^
SAINT AGATHO 29
five bishops. In this synod the Monothelites were con-
demned, and legates were elected to represent the pope in
the general council that was convoked at Constantinople.
The legates were bearers of two letters, one from Agatho,
and the other from the synod, addressed to Constantine. In
that of the pope the following remarkable words occur : "We
send you our legates. Do not expect to find in them secular
eloquence, or even perfect knowledge of the Scriptures.
How could those universal enlightenments be preserved
amidst the tumult of arms by prelates compelled to gain
their daily bread by the daily labor of their hands? The
patrimony of the churches has become the prey of the bar-
barians. All that these prelates have been able to save from
so many ravages is the treasure of the faith, just as our
fathers transmitted it to us, with nothing added to it and
nothing taken from it."
In the same letter Monothelism was refuted by the con-
stant tradition of the Roman Church. "The Catholic uni-
verse," says the pope, "recognizes this Church for the
mother and the mistress of all the others. Her primacy came
from Saint Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to whom Jesus
Christ intrusted the care of his whole flock, with a promise
that his faith should never be found wanting." That letter
having been referred to the Fathers of the council, they re-
ceived it respectfully, and declared that "Peter had spoken
by the mouth of Agatho."
This general council, commonly called "in trullo," from
the round form of the vault where it was held, is known as
the sixth general council, and the third of Constantinople.
There were two hundred and eighty-five Fathers present.
It condemned the Ecthesis of Heraclius, the Type of the
Emperor Constans, and the Monothelites. Finally, it de-
clared that there were two wills in Christ.
3o LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
After the council, in which the Emperor Constantine
Pogonatus gave so many proofs of pure Catholicity, the
pope obtained from him the remission of the three thou-
sand solidi of gold which were exacted by the emperor
on the election of each pope, and it was agreed that thence-
forth that tribute should not be imposed upon the Holy
See. That abuse had been introduced under Athalaric,
and continued under some emperors of the East. Agatho
sent chanters to England to teach the clergy of that
country the Roman chant. Vitalian had taken a like
course with respect to France, whither he had sent the
chanter John to instruct the clerks. In one ordination, in
December, Agatho created eighteen bishops, ten priests, and
three deacons. He governed the Church three years, six
months, and fifteen days. The great number of miracles
that he performed obtained for him, says Anastasius, the
surname of Thaumaturgist. The Greeks, as well as the
Latins, honor his memory on the ioth of January. Novaes
distinctly says that Agatho died at the age of one hundred
and seven years, and he quotes Mongitore, who affirms that
fact.
Agatho was affable and generous ; none ever left his pres-
ence discontented. He was interred at Saint Peter's. The
Holy See remained vacant seven months and five days.
Novaes says nothing about the accusations which at this
time arose against Honorius, of which we have spoken in the
life of that pope. It is certain, in the first place, that Agatho,
in his letter in which he traced all the Monothelite antece-
dents as keenly as he attacked those errors of his own time,
never once mentioned Pope Honorius. In the History of
the Papacy, by Baron Henrion, we find the following pas-
sage : "If the natural and grammatical sense of the assertion
of Honorius is liable to blame, at least the personal sense of
nS -leo-ii-papa-cicvuvs
SAINT LEO II 31
the rescript of that pope has been solidly justified, in such
wise that in the dogmatic facts there is nothing contrary to
the infallibility of the Church. Moreover, Honorius never
ceased, to his last breath, to profess and to defend the truth,
and to exhort and threaten those same Monothelites whose
opinions he has since been accused of embracing."
Finally, the eighth general council, whose decisions are
most certainly to be honored, admits, adds Henrion, that
the pure doctrine had been "invariably taught" from the
apostolic chair.
81
SAINT LEO II— A.D. 682
ON the death of Saint Agatho, Saint Leo II, son of
Paul Manco, a physician, was elected pope. He was
born at Piano di San Martino, near Reggio, in
Magna Grascia (now the kingdom of Naples). He was orig-
inally a canon regular, and then cardinal-priest. He was
elected pope on the 16th of August, 682, and then conse-
crated according to the established custom by the Bishop of
Ostia, assisted by the Bishop of Porto and another bishop.
He confirmed the sixth council, in trullo, whose acts had
been taken to Rome by Agatho's legates, and he translated
them from the Greek into the Latin in order to send a copy
of them to the Spanish bishops. The Emperor Constantine,
at the request of Leo, ordered that on the death of the titular
Archbishop of Ravenna the newly elected archbishop should
go to Rome to be consecrated, conformably to usage; the
pope at the same time dispensed the see of Ravenna from
paying the offering customary at that consecration.
32 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Saint Leo was a great lover of music; he improved the
Gregorian chants, regulated the different modes of intoning
the hymns, and composed several new ones. He instituted
the kiss of peace in the Mass, and the sprinkling of holy
water upon the people. Four letters are attributed to him,
but Baronius believes them to be apocryphal.
In one ordination, on the 16th of June, he created twenty-
three bishops, nine priests, and three deacons. He governed
the Church ten months and seventeen days, and died on the
4th of July, 683. To extensive knowledge he joined rare
prudence.
He was interred at Saint Peter's. The Holy See remained
vacant eleven months and twenty-two days.
82
SAINT BENEDICT II— A.D. 684
IT is debated among writers whether Saint Benedict II,
a Roman, son of John, and supposed to be of the Savelli
family, was a canon regular of Saint John Lateran, or
a Benedictine monk. He was a cardinal-priest, and was
elected pontiff on the 26th of June, 684. Previous to being
consecrated, he intrusted the care of some affairs to Peter,
regionary notary, whom the preceding pontiff, Saint Leo II,
had sent into Spain with the acts of the sixth general coun-
cil; they were addressed to a council of Toledo, which was
to recognize the definition settled at that council. It is
thence inferred that at the time of the election of Benedict
the ancient custom of the pontifical government ceased; by
that custom, at the death of a pope, and from the election to
^BENEDlCTVv?-II-PP -POMANVS
SAINT BENEDICT II 33
the consecration of his successor, the powers of the govern-
ment were intrusted to the archpriest, the archdeacon, and
the primate of the notaries.
The Emperor Constantine IV, who had a tender affection
for Benedict, decreed that thenceforth the election of the
Roman pontiff should not need the confirmation of the em-
peror, nor even that of the exarch, a change which the popes
long and vainly solicited. Unfortunately, the effect of that
decree was not long enjoyed, for Justinian II, son and suc-
cessor of the pious Constantine, paying no respect to the de-
cision of his father, renewed the same abuse, by committing
to the exarch of Ravenna the right of confirming the elec-
tion of Pope Conon.
Benedict, reared in the love of poverty, patient, mild, lib-
eral, versed in the Holy Scriptures, says Fleury, and learned
in the rules of the chant, was much regretted. He created
twelve bishops, and governed the Church ten months and
twelve days. According to Baronius, this pontiff was so
beloved by the Emperor Constantine that the prince sent to
the pope the hair of his sons Justinian and Heraclius, which
at that time signified that the emperor looked upon the pon-
tiff as a second father of the young heirs of the empire.
Benedict died on the 7th of March, 685, and was interred
at Saint Peter's. The Holy See remained vacant two months
and fifteen days.
34 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
83
JOHN V— A.D. 685
JOHN V, son of Cyriacus, of Antioch, cardinal-deacon
at the sixth oecumenical council, was elected pontiff on
the 23d of July, 685, and consecrated without waiting
for the confirmation of the emperor or the exarch.
This pope restored to the Holy See the churches of Sardinia,
the ordinations of which had from primitive times belonged
to her, but had been temporarily granted to the Archbishop
of Cagliari.
In one ordination, in December, John created thirteen
bishops. He governed one year and ten days, but was al-
most constantly ill. He died on the 1st of August, and was
interred at Saint Peter's. He was a man filled with piety,
prudence, zeal, and knowledge. The Holy See remained
vacant five months and eighteen days.
The Emperor Constantine IV died in 685. Two great
events signalize this reign, the repression of the Saracens,
and the restoration of peace to the Church.
This emperor, generous, and often even magnanimous,
who so worthily atoned for the crimes of his father, Con-
stans II, a monarch as perfidious as he was cruel, was suc-
ceeded by a prince only sixteen years old, his son, Justin-
ian II. The young emperor, trifling with his sovereign
power, successively inherited, lost, and recovered it. In his
misfortunes Justinian implored the clemency and the compas-
sion of the conqueror, and thus obtained his life ; but when
he regained power he knew not how to pardon. He suffered
his lieutenants to dishonor his name in Italy, and under the
successors of John V we shall see the evil influence of Jus-
tinian develop itself, to the misfortune of the Church.
f
IOANNE^ -V- PP *s$YKVS
&z
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-*T
An
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CONON 35
84
CONON— A.D. 687
THIS pope, the son of Benedict, of Thracian race, was
born at Temesvar, a town of Lower Mysia, where
Ovid was exiled. Conon received his education in
Sicily, became cardinal-priest, and was elected pope in 687.
He was compelled, notwithstanding the decree of Constan-
tine Pogonatus, to solicit the confirmation of the exarch of
Ravenna. This pope governed the Church during only a
few months. In one ordination he created sixteen bishops.
He was an old man, white-haired, of venerable countenance ;
simple, peaceable, a stranger to faction, of but little experi-
ence in public business.
Some authors accuse him of imprudence, because he or-
dained, as Bishop of Antioch, Constantine, a Syracusan, and
rector of the patrimony of the Roman Church in Sicily,
without making previous inquiry of the clergy at Rome as
to the merit and bearing of the new bishop, as was the cus-
tom for all ecclesiastical appointments. Subsequently, says
Pagi, it was ascertained that Constantine was unworthy of
that honor.
This pope died on the 21st of September, 687, and was in-
terred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant two
months and twenty-three days.
At the time of the election of Conon, that is to say,
after the death of John, there were two antipopes, Peter,
archpriest, and Theodore, priest. The former was supported
by the clergy, the second by the judges and the army. To
put an end to the intrigues, the clergy elected a third, Conon.
Justinian II had fomented all these troubles.
36 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Under this reign, Saint Killian, of an illustrious family of
Great Britain, obtained permission to go to Germany to con-
vert the infidels. At first he met with great success at Wiirz-
burg, but afterwards incurred the unjust hatred of the wife
of the Duke Gosbert, who governed that country. When
that English bishop and his companions were singing the
praises of the Lord, the duke's wife caused them to be ar-
rested, and they subsequently suffered martyrdom with a
courage worthy of the primitive times of the Church.
85
SAINT SERGIUS I— A.D. 687
SAINT SERGIUS I, son of Tiberius, native of Antioch,
and educated at Palermo, or rather, as some say,
Syrian by descent, born at Palermo, and educated at
Rome, where he became a canon regular of Saint John Lat-
eran, was first named cardinal-priest of Saint Susanna by
Leo II, and was elected pontiff on the 15th of December, 687.
Justinian II, successor of Constantine IV, and the son whose
hair the latter had sent as a token of filial love to Benedict
II, had subsequently continued to manifest feelings of ha-
tred and malignity. Harsh and presumptuous, he con-
founded the Roman monarchy with the whole world;
claimed that all peoples ought to obey his laws, and believed
that he had a right to sell the very chair of Saint Peter. In
a council held at Constantinople, and at which only Greek
prelates were present, he caused it to be decided that priests
who had married previous to their ordination should be per-
mitted to retain their wives. This council was called quini-
v^ERGIVS 4*PP^YRVvy-
SAINT SERGIUS I 37
sextile, because it was, as it were, supplementary to the fifth
and sixth general councils. The discipline of the West did
not allow of the possibility of this rule. A hundred and five
canons had been passed in that assembly, and when they
were submitted to Sergius for his approbation he refused it.
Irritated by this refusal to subscribe the name of the Holy
See to the decision of the Greek council, Justinian publicly
ordered Zachary, his esquire, to seize the pope and convey
him to Constantinople. Zachary, on proceeding to Rome,
found the whole people in arms for the defence of their pas-
tor. The soldiery of the exarchate hastened from Ravenna
to Rome with the same hostile design against the pope, and
the city resounded with shouts and threatenings. Zachary,
pursued from street to street, took shelter in the very cham-
ber of the pope, whom he entreated to save him. The Lom-
bard ambassadors, who resided at Rome at the same time,
sent off couriers begging that Lombard troops might be
sent to the defence of Sergius. Suddenly a rumor arose that
by treachery, combined with violence, the pope had been car-
ried off and embarked upon the Tiber. The troops from Ra-
venna immediately invaded the palace, and tumultuously
demanded to see the pope, threatening to burst in the doors if
they were not instantly opened. Zachary, concealed beneath
the very bed of the pope, feared that he would be discov-
ered, and entreated the pope not to desert him. Sergius
promised him protection, ordered the doors to be thrown
open, and presented himself to the soldiers, who kissed his
hands and garments. The times had changed since an em-
peror had so cruelly carried off Pope Martin. The unworthy
treatment of that martyr was still remembered, and it was
known that Justinian was prepared to be no less barbarous
than his ancestor, Constans. The pope purified the people
and blessed them, and solicited the life of Zachary, which
38 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
the Romans granted, and Zachary was ignominiously driven
from Rome. This was the first time that the Italians sided
with the pontiff in opposition to the imperial power.
This pope, by his prudence, reconciled to the Church of
Rome that of Aquileia, which from the time of Vigilius had
been separated on account of not condemning the three
chapters.
Saint Sergius ordered that on the days of the Annuncia-
tion, Nativity, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and on
Saint Simeon's day, that is, on the day of Purification, the
people should go in procession from Saint Adrian to Saint
Mary Major.
Sergius had made himself beloved by Rome and by all
Italy. After having saved him from so many dangers, they
regarded him as their own conquest. This pope died on the
7th of September, 701. He had governed the Church thir-
teen years, eight months, and twenty-four days. In two or-
dinations he created ninety-six bishops, eighteen priests, and
four deacons. He was interred at the Vatican. The Holy
See remained vacant one month and twenty days.
It was at that period that Africa fell into the power of the
Mussulmans. As they had taken Carthage, the emperor
sent the patrician John, a great captain, who drove them
out; but in the following year they again returned in great
force, recaptured Carthage and some other towns, and thus
extinguished the power of the Romans in Africa, where they
had ruled for eight hundred and fifty years, from the year
608 of Rome, when Carthage was taken by Scipio.
On the death of the pontiff Conon, the sacred comitia were
assembled. Theodore, archpriest, and Paschal, archdeacon,
presented themselves as candidates to succeed him. Theo-
dore had already been the competitor of Conon. Neither of
the rivals would yield, and then it was that Sergius was
xA •--,'" A
1j
1
1 IOANNEv?
-VI ^PP
* GRJ&CVS*
JOHN VI 39
elected. Subsequently, Paschal, convicted of magic, was
degraded and confined in a monastery, where he died im-
penitent. Theodore had yielded in good faith to the author-
ity of Sergius, and Paschal had never ceased to show anger
and discontent.
86
JOHN VI— A.D. 701
JOHN VI, a Greek, son of Petronius, was elected pontiff
on the 28th of October, 701. Scarcely did the Emperor
Tiberius Absimarius hear of that exaltation than he
sent to Rome the exarch of Ravenna, Theophylactus, a
patrician, to obtain from the pope, by force, his approbation
in a certain business which was not clearly explained. But
the Italian army, which a short time before had protected
Sergius, also pronounced now in favor of John, seeing in
Theophylactus another Galliopas or another Zachary. The
soldiers were about to strike the exarch, but John inter-
posed. Baronius observes that divine Providence, protect-
ing the Roman pontiffs, so manifested itself then in their
favor that, when the emperors attacked or insulted the
popes, the Italian soldiers protected them against the im-
perial power. From that time the power of the exarchs be-
gan to decline, and that of the popes continually increased.
The latter profitted by this advantage, but without abus-
ing it ; moreover, it was a wise principle not to rely too much
on military favor.
In the council that John celebrated at Rome, in the year
703, he declared the innocence of Saint Wilfred, Bishop of
4o LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
York, who had been deposed from the see in the year 692,
and appealed to Rome. The pope received that bishop
kindly, attentively examined the case, and sent him back
to England, with recommendations to the kings of that
country.
John governed three years, two months, and thirteen
days. In one ordination he created fifteen bishops, nine
priests, and two deacons. He died on the gth of January,
705. The apostolical charity of John led him to redeem all
the slaves who had fallen into the power of Gisulf, Duke of
Benevento, who had ravaged the Roman territory. John
was interred, according to some, in the catacombs of Saint
Sebastian, but, according to others, in the Basilica of Saint
Peter. The Holy See remained vacant one month and
twenty days.
That year the Caliph Walid caused a magnificent mosque
to be built in Damascus, his capital, having the great church
dedicated to Saint John razed to the ground for that purpose.
It is said that he made an offer to the Christians to purchase
their cathedral church of Saint John for a considerable sum.
They refused it, and then the Mussulman seized upon the
church, razed it, and on its site had his mosque erected,
without giving anything to the Christians.
This outrage was avenged four centuries later by the
French kings of Jerusalem.
• ...
IOANNEvT - VII *PP - GRi^CVv?
JOHN VII 41
87
JOHN VII— A.D. 705
JOHN VII, cardinal-deacon of Saint Mary the New, son
of Plato, a Greek, said by others, but with little founda-
tion, to have been born at Rossano, in Calabria, in
Magna Graecia, was a very learned man for his time.
He was elected pontiff on the 1st of March, 705.
In 707, Aribert II, king of the Lombards, restored to him
the Cottian Alps. They were thus called from Prince Cot-
tius, who for a long time possessed them under the Emperor
Octavian Augustus. They formed the fifth province of
Italy, made part of Liguria to the confines of Gaul, and con-
tained Tortona, Bobbio, Acqui, Genoa, and Savona.
Previous to the coming of the Lombards, the Cottian Alps
were administered by the popes. The Lombards usurped
those provinces in spite of the remonstrances of the various
pontiffs. Aribert caused a diploma to be drawn up in letters
of gold, and in that document he recognized the property of
the Holy See; it was afterwards confirmed by King Luit-
prand, under the reign of Gregory II, as is related by Paul
the Deacon.
The Emperor Justinian II having sent to John the canons
of the last council held at Constantinople, with the request
that he should confirm what he should approve, and reject
what he should disapprove in them, John returned the docu-
ments unread, because the council had not been assembled
with the intervention of the papal legates. Anastasius the
Librarian blames John for this conduct, and thinks that, as
42 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
in those canons there was much that was good, John would
have done well to approve them, with the exception of such
canons as were bad.
Feller and Novaes judge John, perhaps, too severely upon
this subject. Feller quotes the opinion of Fleury, who says
that : " John, fearing to displease the emperor, sent back those
volumes without correcting anything in them." Novaes
quotes the opinion of Christianus Lupus, who also blames
the pontiff, on the authority of Anastasius. But, considering
the conduct of Constans towards Pope Martin, and the ser-
vices rendered to Pope Sergius and John VI by the soldiery
of Rome and Ravenna; considering, too, the perverse and
hypocritical nature of Justinian II, and the natural insta-
bility of the soldiery, we may judge John VII less severely.
Evidently, had he acted as Anastasius, Christianus Lupus,
Feller, and Novaes seem to advise, it might have happened
that, Justinian approving what John might have approved,
but then refusing to reject whatever John might have re-
jected, the already embarrassing circumstances would have
been fatally complicated by such a course being adopted by
the Holy See.
This pope had the magnanimity to expose himself to great
dangers ; his name has been compromised during the succes-
sion of a thousand years, while he was really a sagacious
pontiff, ready to follow sage counsel and slow to write. We
should all concede that now. The misfortunes of Honorius,
abandoned by the legates of the sixth council, were a for-
midable warning to the successors of that pope. The course
pursued by John VII entailed no more evils on the Church,
gave Justinian no more opportunity for invading the rights
of the Holy See and crushing its rising power.
He did not postpone the epoch when that power was to
take its majestic course amid the nations that honor a spirit
^
m
■
JISINIVS - 1 - PP - v^YRVvT -
SISINNIUS 43
of order and civilization, becoming, as we shall see in the
sequel, the regenerative power in Europe.
John VII governed the Church two years, seven months,
and seventeen days. In one ordination he created fifteen
bishops, nine priests, and two deacons. He died on the 1 7th
of October, 707, and was interred in the Vatican, in front of
the altar of the Madonna, now called Madonna of the Su-
dorio, which he had himself set up.
The Holy See remained vacant three months.
88
SISINNIUS— A.D. 708
SISINNIUS, a native of Syria, son of John, was elected
pontiff on the 18th of January, 708. He reigned only
twenty days, during which time he held one ordina-
tion and created bishops for Corsica. He died in February
of the same year, from an attack of gout. He had lost the
use of both his hands and his feet. Notwithstanding his
great sufferings, he was of a noble and generous disposition.
He contemplated restoring the walls of Rome and rebuild-
ing many of the churches. Death took him away, when
already, in so brief a reign, he had collected considerable
materials for that laudable undertaking. He was interred
at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant one month and nineteen
days.
44 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
89
CONSTANTINE— A.D. 708
CONSTANTINE, born at Syria, son of John, was
elected pontiff on the 25th of March, 708. Justinian
was still emperor, and his conduct proves that the
conduct of John VII was as courageous as it was skilful. Jus-
tinian, from time to time, showed himself indignant that the
canons of his council had not been accepted at Rome ; but he
appeared to be unwilling to resort again to trick and perfidy,
and he wrote to Pope Constantine, formerly his friend, and
entreated him to visit Byzantium. The emperor declared
that he wished to converse amicably with the pontiff upon
ecclesiastical affairs, and even intimated his intention to
change his conduct and to expiate his faults, and he urged
the pope to visit him and encourage his projects of penitence
and clemency.
Constantine, full of strength and zeal, deemed it his duty
not to hesitate about undertaking a journey so interesting
and important to the Holy See ; and he might have sacrificed
his life had the tyrant been audacious enough to take it.
Setting out from Rome on the 5th of October, 710, he
went by sea, accompanied by a very numerous cortege, con-
sisting of deacons, priests, and bishops, continuing his jour-
ney by way of Sicily. The reception given to him by order
of the emperor induced him to believe that that prince har-
bored no evil intentions. An imperial diploma ordered all
officers to pay to the pope the same honors as to the emperor
himself. Tiberius, son of Justinian, followed by the princi-
pal Greek nobility, and the patriarch Cyrus at the head of his
clergy, and a multitude of the people, met the pope at about
C O NS TANTINVtf -I*PP * S YR Vvf -
CONSTANTINE 45
seven miles from Byzantium. The pope, dressed in the same
vestments that he wore at Rome on days of ceremony, and
the principal clergy mounted on horses from the imperial
stables, with their saddles, bridles, and housings richly em-
broidered with gold, entered in triumph. Thus far the cour-
age of Constantine seemed fully rewarded. The emperor
was absent, and the pope was conducted to the palace that
had been prepared to receive him. The prince, who was at
Nice, as soon as he heard of the arrival of the pontiff, sent
him a letter of congratulation, and begged him to come to
Nicomedia, to which he was himself proceeding. At their
first interview, the emperor, with his crown on his head,
prostrated himself before the pope and kissed his feet. Then
they embraced, amidst the applauding shouts of the people.
It was in a private interview that they conversed about the
canons of the council. Constantine, considering himself in a
situation different from that in which John VII had been
placed, rejected one portion of the canons and accepted the
other portion. The conference terminated to the satisfac-
tion of the emperor, who showed his pleasure at having ob-
tained some advantages from the condescension of Constan-
tine, and to give a public testimony of his satisfaction, he
on the following Sunday was present at the Mass that was
celebrated by the pope, and received the communion from
the Holy Father's own hand. On conjuring the pope to
grant him the remission of his sins, the emperor renewed the
privileges which his predecessors had granted to the Church
of Rome; and he then permitted his return to Italy. The
pope re-entered his own capital in 711, after a year's ab-
sence, stronger, more powerful, more sovereign than ever.
Justinian having been assassinated, Philippicus Bardanes
endeavored to re-establish the doctrine of the Monothelites.
Constantine, with new courage, resisted.
46 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Philippicus was succeeded by Anastasius II, a profoundly
Catholic prince. He sent to Constantine a confession of
faith, full and entire, and peace was re-established in the
Church. Constantine governed seven years and twelve days.
In one ordination he created sixty-four bishops, ten
priests, and two deacons. He died on the 8th of April, 715,
and was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained
vacant one month and ten days.
There is a serious consideration which has escaped histo-
rians ; it is this : Since Saint Peter, who came to Rome in the
year of our Lord 42, since Saint Linus, A.D. 66, and his prin-
cipal successors, Saint Evaristus, Saint Pius, Saint Victor,
Saint Sylvester, and to Pope Constantine in 708, there were
eighty-nine popes. The clergy of Rome, it is true, frequently
gave the power to their compatriots. Of the above number
forty were Romans ; but the other forty-nine were, one Gali-
lean, and the remainder Tuscans, Athenians, Syrians, By-
zantine Greeks, Africans, Dalmatians, Spaniards, Sardini-
ans, Corsicans, Sicilians, and Neapolitans. Certainly a pious
impartiality alone could have dictated those selections.
They appear to have been dictated solely by zeal for
religion. No faithful Christian was excluded. The three
(then known) great divisions of the globe had, respectively,
their candidates, and frequently those of Asia and Africa
obtained the votes. Rome could not be accused of exclu-
sively placing her own children in the chair of Saint Peter.
It may be imagined that in Rome a preference would some-
times be felt for the Roman candidate, but that tendency did
not exist to such an extent as to exclude others. So judi-
cious a plan, rising above all dismemberings and schisms,
singularly elevated and increased the power of the Holy See,
especially at periods when Syrians, like Constantine, and
immediate subjects of Byzantium obtained the suffrages of
Mjfawj
/
GREGORIV^II-PP -ROMATNfVvT
SAINT GREGORY II 47
the Romans. It need not be asked how the popes became
sovereigns of the surrounding country; rather it should be
asked how could they possibly fail to become so under such
circumstances, notwithstanding the difference between the
head of the Church and the heads of States, between the
spiritual and the temporal, between heaven and earth.
90
SAINT GREGORY II— A.D. 715
SAINT GREGORY was a Roman Benedictine monk,
chaplain and librarian of .the Holy Roman Church, a
cardinal-deacon (a dignity which he owed to Saint
Sergius, and, according to several writers, to Constans, who,
when at Constantinople, brought him thence). His election,
on the 1 gth of May, 715, was the result of a remarkable agree-
ment in opinion between the Roman clergy and people. The
intentions of this pope were irreproachable, his courage was
firm, and he vigorously maintained the rights of the Church.
At the commencement of his pontificate he began to repair
the walls of Rome, but various circumstances retarded that
useful design.
Italy was a prey to the Lombards, who had surprised
Cumea, near Naples, during a peace, and refused to restore
it, although Gregory threatened them with the anger of God.
Their obstinacy was not to be shaken by entreaties, threats,
or presents; and Duke John of Naples, supported by Greg-
ory, retook Cumea by force.
This pontiff also labored to revive monastic discipline in
Italy. To restore the abbey of Monte Cassino, ruined by the
48 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Lombards about a hundred and fifty years before, he sent
Petronax, who, having from pious motives visited Rome,
had there embraced the monastic life. He was accompanied,
in the holy mission intrusted to him, by some brethren of the
monastery of the Lateran, founded at Rome in the time of
Pelagius II by the monks of Monte Cassino, who had taken
shelter in the capital.
Petronax and his companions, on their arrival at Monte
Cassino, found a few anchorites living there in great sim-
plicity. Amid the ruins of the old monastery these ancho-
rites, together with some new brethren, formed one com-
munity, and elected as their superior Petronax, who thus
became the sixth abbot from the original founding of the
order. The re-establishment of the monastery of Monte
Cassino took place in the year 718, and from that time the
monastery was very famous, and considered as a fountain
diffusing the pure observance of the rule of the great Saint
Benedict.
Let us learn how, at that period, the English understood
Catholicity. "They continued," says Fleury, "their pilgrim-
ages to Rome, and Ceolfrid, abbot of Weymouth, died on his
way back. Seeing that age prevented his further instruction
of his disciples and disabled him from setting them an exam-
ple of perfect regularity, he, after long consideration, deter-
mined that it would be best to have a new abbot elected, that
he himself might go to Rome, to die in that city which he
had formerly visited with Saint Benedict Biscop, his master.
The monks endeavored to detain Ceolfrid by weeping and
clinging to his knees, but he hastened his departure, fearing
that he might die on the way, or be prevented from proceed-
ing by some of the lords of the country. On the third day
after he had announced his intention to depart, Mass was
celebrated very early in the morning, those present com-
SAINT GREGORY II 49
municated, and then they assembled in the Church of Saint
Peter, and the abbot gave them the kiss of peace from the
steps of the altar, censer in hand. The chant of litanies was
broken by the sobs of the brethren, and they entered the ora-
tory of Saint Laurence, where the pilgrim bade them a last
farewell. He was attended to the riverside by the deacons,
carrying lighted tapers and a golden cross. All knelt, and,
praying once more, the holy abbot set out, leaving about six
hundred monks in the two monasteries of Jarrow and Wey-
mouth. As soon as their former head had departed, the monks
unanimously elected for their abbot Hucbert, who immedi-
ately followed Saint Ceolfrid, who had not yet sailed. He
approved the choice, and even took from the new abbot, his
successor, a letter of recommendation to Pope Gregory II.
He did not reach Rome, but falling sick at Langres, in
France, died there, aged seventy-four years."
In the same year the Irish monks abandoned their diver-
sity of opinion, and joined in the observance of the Roman
Church relative to Easter and the ecclesiastical tonsure. For
this purpose Saint Egbert, an Englishman who had em-
braced the monastic life in Ireland, was chosen. Having
arrived at their monastery, he was received with much dis-
tinction, and, as he was very learned and very zealous, he per-
suaded these good monks to quit their erroneous tradition.
It is believed that they, at the same time, adopted the rule
of Saint Benedict.
But that was not enough to place the English in the first
rank among the pillars of Christianity. The greatest light
of the English Church at this time was Saint Boniface, after-
wards the Apostle of Germany.
Bossuet, in his rapid glance at religious affairs, which he
described with the countless events of history, gives only
three lines to the heroism of Saint Boniface. These three
5o LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
lines should not be neglected: "Religion was established in
Germany; the holy priest Boniface converted those nations,
and was made their bishop by Pope Gregory II, who had
sent him thither."
I do not add this pope's name to the texts I cite or extract
from other historians. His reputation drew to Rome all
who wished to show their zeal for the doctrine of Christ.
Boniface, or, as he was called in Saxon, Winifred, who had
already enjoyed great renown in England, determined to
visit Rome. He there presented himself before the pope,
and explained his desire to labor for the conversion of the
heathen. The pope, looking kindly upon him, asked him if
he had brought any letters from his bishop. Winifred had
not neglected to procure letters dimissory from Bishop
Daniel, of Winchester, in whose diocese he had received the
priesthood, and he drew from beneath his cloak a sealed let-
ter for the pope, and another unsealed, which was a general
letter of recommendation to all Christians, according to the
then existing custom. The pope motioned to him to withdraw,
and having at his leisure read the letters of Bishop Daniel,
he had several conferences with Winifred while he waited
for a favorable season for his journey, that is to say, the be-
ginning of summer, 719. Then the pope gave Winifred the
relics he had asked for, together with the mission to preach
the gospel to all the infidel nations that he might reach, to
baptize them according to the Roman ritual, and to commu-
nicate to the Holy See whatever might tend to the accom-
plishment of that mission. The plenary powers bear date the
15th of March, in the third year of the reign of the Emperor
Leo III, indiction the second, that is to say, A.D. 719. With
these letters Winifred first passed into Lombardy, where he
was honorably received by King Luitprand. He then trav-
ersed Bavaria, and reached Thuringia, where he commenced
SAINT GREGORY II 51
his pious labors. He preached to both nobles and people, to
lead them back to the true religion which false teachers had
altered and almost extinguished. For although there were
priests and bishops who were sincerely zealous for the ser-
vice of God, Winifred met with others sunk in incontinence,
whom he endeavored, by exhortation, to bring back to a life
in conformity to the holy canons.
Winifred having sent to the pope an account of his suc-
cessful mission, the pontiff invited him to Rome. Being
questioned upon various particulars of the faith of the
Church, Boniface answered so frankly and clearly that the
pope told him to prepare to be consecrated as bishop. The
holy priest submitted, and the day for the consecration was
fixed for the 30th November, 723, the feast of Saint Andrew.
The pope changed the name of the new bishop from Wini-
fred to Boniface ("boni faciens" — doing good), and in the
seventh year of the Emperor Leo, sixth indiction, which is
the same as A.D. 723, he caused the new bishop to take an
oath by which he bound himself to keep the purity of the
faith and the unity of Catholicity, to act always with the
pope for the good of the Holy See, to secure advantage to
the Roman Church, and to renounce all communion with the
bishops who did not observe true maxims. The pope, on his
part, gave Winifred a book of canons, to serve as a rule of
his conduct, and intrusted him with six letters. The first
of those letters was to Charles Martel, son of Pepin, the
former mayor of the palace, who had died in 714, after gov-
erning in Paris during twenty-seven years, in the name of
Dagobert III. In this letter Gregory recommended to
Charles Martel the bearer, Boniface, an envoy to the heathen
dwelling east of the Rhine; for the dominion of France ex-
tended beyond that river very far into Germany. The other
letters were addressed to all the bishops, priests, deacons,
52 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
dukes, counts, clergy, and people whom Boniface was to
govern as bishop; to the Christians of Thuringia and their
five princes, who are named in the letters, and also to all the
people of the old Saxons.
Charles Martel, who governed France for Thierry IV, re-
ceived Boniface with respect, and recommended him to all
the bishops of the kingdom.
The Emperor Leo enkindled the fatal "War of Images/'
which continued for a hundred and eighteen years. He had
obtained warlike success, and he imagined that no power,
even moral, could resist him. Trusting too much to his
glory, he resolved to become a reformer. "Religion," says a
learned writer, "dreads the hand of the prince; it needs his
protection, not his reforming; from its own ministers alone
it expects reform." This caprice neutralized all Leo's talent.
How could a man of such low condition that he had carried
loads in the public markets and had fed and sold cattle, a
poor Syrian, uneducated and without any science, become,
on attaining the highest civil dignity on earth, a ferocious
persecutor? He treated as a favorite Beser, another Syrian,
who was born a Christian, but who, having been captured
by Mahometans, had apostatized to their faith. Released
from slavery, Beser had returned to Catholicity, but sought
to introduce into it Mahometan notions. He broached his
heretical ideas to Leo, and the emperor had the audacity to
assemble the senate and to pronounce before it the following
declaration: "I will abolish that idolatry which has found its
way into the Church. The images of Jesus Christ, the Vir-
gin, and the saints are idols that have honors bestowed upon
them of which God is jealous. I have, therefore, drawn up
an edict for purging the churches of this sacrilegious super-
stition."
At this signal, the courtiers, the weak, the ignorant, the
SAINT GREGORY II 53
friends of every novelty, and men who hoped to repair their
own broken fortunes during a time of public trouble, broke
the sacred images, respecting none but those of the emperor.
A revolt ensued at once throughout the East; in Africa,
Spain, Gaul, and Italy ; in brief, in all the brilliant conquests
that had already been made by Catholicity.
For an instant Leo was inclined to retract; but his first
fury rekindling, he ordered that the images should be re-
moved from all the churches.
From that instant Leo, the armed sophist, held confer-
ences in which he argued, in the military style, against Ger-
manus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and showed himself all
but Mahometan in conviction. He expected by this com-
plaisance to soften and attract the Mussulmans, and he
scarcely intended to remain a Christian, since he thus sac-
rificed Catholic customs and the rules of one of the most
sacred traditions of our Fathers.
John Damascenus, called Chrysorroes, "golden river," re-
sisted the new error in the East. Gregory II summoned
around him all the West. The conscience of Christendom
repulsed the arch-heretic emperor. Leo, especially irritated
against the pope, endeavored by crime to rid himself of his
powerful censor.
Marinus, the emperor's esquire, was charged to organize
a conspiracy against the pontiff. The principal conspirators
were discovered and punished. The exarch Paul assembled
troops and prepared to make himself master of Rome, and
by force of arms to elect another pope. The Romans, warned
of the approach of the exarch's troops, took up arms; the
Florentines, the Lombards of Spoleto, and all the inhabitants
of the neighborhood also rushed to the defence of the papal
city, and Paul was obliged to return to Ravenna.
The Saracens continued to harass Constantinople, which
54 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
had adopted their spirit of opposition and malignity ; but the
emperor, who had become less a warrior than an advocate
of bad theology, was more concerned about the resistance of
the pope than about the progress which the enemy was mak-
ing around his own capital.
Leo, by his own obstinacy, unconsciously prepared the
way for two great results. There can be no doubt but that
the troubles incited in Italy contributed to establish the in-
dependence of the popes and to raise up the empire of the
French to the prejudice of the Greeks.
The Romans, moreover, in this interregnum, sustained
the interests of the pope, so intimately connected with their
own, for they had everything to fear from the Lombards and
from the exarchs. These two powers, incited by the Em-
peror Leo, endeavored to unite in order to occupy Rome;
Luitprand commanded his Lombards, and also the troops
of the exarchs, much astonished at marching together.
Their watch-fires crowned Monte Mario, and they advanced
to the foot of Adrian's mausoleum, now the Castle of Sant'
Angelo. Gregory, preceded by his clergy, issued from Rome.
A new Saint Leo, he represented that the misfortunes of
Rome would be those of all Christendom; and that the Sara-
cens, far more than the emperor, would rejoice over the dis-
asters of the metropolis of the faith of Christ. The eloquence
of Gregory moved King Luitprand even to tears.
Luitprand threw himself at the feet of the pontiff. They
were near Saint Peter's; and Gregory pointed out to the
king the sacred place containing the tomb of the apostle.
Luitprand, confounded, advanced towards the church,
knelt before the confessional of the Prince of the Apostles,
put off his royal robes, and laid them, with his baldric, his
sword, his golden crown, and his silver crown, by the tomb.
He then begged the pope to forgive his enemies. Gregory
SAINT GREGORY II 55
pronounced the solemn pardon, and the king returned to
Pavia.
Wise and cultivated men plainly perceived that all these
events necessarily gave strength to the Church. Minds de-
prived of energy, which do not at all examine the secrets of
Providence, and see only the confused spectacle of submis-
sion that is presented to their eyes, even these, notwith-
standing their ignorance, convinced themselves of the neces-
sity of obedience to the sovereign pontiff, when they saw at
his feet the most formidable prince in Italy, whom all looked
upon as determined to overthrow the power of Gregory.
Leo, in his criminal impetuosity, had written to him, warn-
ing him of the fate of Pope Martin. But the fatigues of the
pontificate, and the occurrence of hostilities, had so destroyed
the health of Gregory that he died on the 10th of February,
73i.
This pontificate was a reign of wisdom, of glory, and of
courage. The pope wrote to Leo: "The West sees our hu-
mility [this alludes to Charles Martel and Luitprand], and
regards us as the arbitrator and moderator of the public
tranquillity. If you venture to make a trial, you will find the
West ready to seek you where you are, in order to avenge
the wrongs of your Eastern subjects."
The countless consequences of so many facts will be de-
veloped ; I will here mention some material consequences of
high importance. Rome had a duke, named by the emperor.
Marinus had obtained the dignity; but, being ordered to
murder Gregory, the disloyal governor had failed, and the
people had expelled him, demanding the appointment of an-
other. Peter, the successor of Marinus, ever speaking of the
destruction of the images, was in his turn deprived of power,
and the Roman duchy, desiring to enjoy a more secure lib-
erty, voluntarily submitted to Gregory II, so that one may
56 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
say that from that period commenced in part the positive
temporal dominion of the sovereign pontiffs.
Gregory II governed the Church fifteen years, eight
months, and twenty-three days. In four ordinations, in the
months of September and June, he created one hundred and
fifty bishops, thirty-five priests, and fourteen deacons.
Baronius thinks him worthy to be compared to Saint
Gregory the Great. Gregory II was interred at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant five days.
Platina informs us that under this pope the Tiber over-
flowed the city from the Ponte Molle to the first steps of
Saint Peter's Church.
91
SAINT GREGORY III— A.D. 731
SAINT GREGORY III, son of John, a Syrian, a Bene-
dictine monk, and cardinal-priest, was unanimously
elected five days after the death of Gregory II. As
the confirmation of the election by the exarch of Ravenna
had to be waited for, the pontiff was not consecrated until
the 1 8th of March.
Leo, the emperor, continued the persecution against those
who would not destroy the images. Gregory II had pro-
nounced against the iconoclasts, and Gregory III was no
less animated in opposition to that barbarous custom.
Luitprand, king of the Lombards, resumed his hostility.
Charles Martel had not previously given any striking proof
of his good will and support, his authority not being suf-
ficiently firm in France. But he could not resist the repeated
GRECiORIV^ -III>PP* vT*TRVv5^
SAINT GREGORY III 57
appeals of Gregory III. Charles ordered Luitprand to leave
the new Roman State free and confine himself absolutely to
the possession of the Lombard States.
In the letter which Gregory III addressed to Charles Mar-
tel, soliciting an effective intervention, the pope gave that
prince the title of Most Christian. Pope Pius II declared
that title hereditary in the person of the kings of France,
when he wrote to Charles VI and his successors. From this
pontifical embassy arose the institution of pontifical nuncios
in the West, which somewhat resembled that of apocrisi-
aries, or political agents, accredited by the popes to Constan-
tinople. The nuncios, however, were still further recog-
nized as ministers of a sovereign power.
In 732 the pope had more urgent occasion than ever to
solicit the support of Charles Martel for the interest of the
Catholic religion. The Saracens, after subjecting Africa,
had occupied Spain. They appeared to follow the same road
that Hannibal had taken in order to reach Italy. However,
by a kind of military skill which they do not seem to have
been suspected of possessing, they would not advance too
far without securing their flanks against Charles Martel,
who kept strict watch upon such dangerous enemies to re-
ligion and the power that he was beginning to establish. It
was necessary then to bar the Mussulmans from access to
Italy, and to that end it was urged that Charles should keep
them in Spain. Their chief did not venture to pass the Alps
until he had repulsed Charles. A general battle became in-
evitable ; a large portion of Gaul was already invaded.
Henri Martin, in his History of France, says: "Charles
Martel had not waited for the appearance of the Mussulman
hosts before the gate of Orleans and Sens to declare, war.
He had not quitted France that year and held himself in
readiness to throw into the scale the weight of his sword.
58 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
The arrival of Eudes, King of Aquitaine, beaten, a fugitive,
a general without an army, and a king without a kingdom,
convinced Charles that the danger was more instantly immi-
nent than he had supposed it. He gave Eudes a cordial recep-
tion, though they had formerly been enemies; he promised
him everything, on condition that he recognized the sover-
eignty of the Franks, and that Aquitaine should thus enter
into the Frank monarchy.
"During the whole summer of 732 the Roman clarions and
the Germanic trumpets blared in the countries of Austrasia
and Neustria, in the rustic palaces of the Frank leudes, and in
the gaws of western Germany. The most impenetrable
marshes of the North Sea and the wildest recesses of the Black
Forest poured out hosts of half-naked combatants rushing
towards the Loire, following, as a rear-guard, the heavy
Austrasian knights in full panoply of steel. This enormous
mass of Franks, Teutons, and Gallic Romans passed the
Loire at Orleans, and was joined by the remnants of the
Aquitaine army which had been compelled to retire into
Berri and Touraine, and appeared before the invaders in Oc-
tober, 732.
"This was one of the most solemn moments in the whole
history of the human race. Islamism was face to face with
the last bulwark of Christianity. After the Visigoths, the
Gallo- Vascons ; after the Gallo-Vascons, the Franks; but
after the Franks, nothing! The Anglo-Saxons isolated in
their island ; the Lombards weak rulers of exhausted Italy ;
even the Greco-Romans of the Eastern Empire could not
save Europe. Constantinople had work enough to save itself.
The contemporary chronicler Isidore de Beja was not wrong
in calling the Frank army 'the army of the Europeans.' That
army lost, the world was Mahomet's.
"What would have been the result to humanity had the
SAINT GREGORY III 59
European civilization of the Middle Ages, our mother, been
thus stifled in the cradle? At the moment of the tremendous
collision, the Arabs, still in the first fierce fervor of Islamism,
had, assuredly, more humanity, morality, and enlightenment
than the Franks. But we must not be deluded by that acci-
dental superiority, nor dazzled by the elegant monuments of
art and literature that were produced in Cordova, Granada,
Bagdad, and Shiraz. Islamism, compared to European be-
lief, was not a new development of humanity, but a back-
ward impulse. The Koran resuscitated ancient fatalism,
subjected women anew to the humiliating yoke of polygamy,
which the Greeks and Romans had broken.
"The fate of the world was about to be decided between
the Franks and the Arabs. The barbarians of Austrasia
scarcely suspected what issues were intrusted to their
swords ; yet they had a vague notion of the immensity of the
struggle in which they were about to be engaged. The Mus-
sulmans, on their part, hesitated for the first time. During
a week the East and the West examined each other with
hate and terror; the two armies, or rather the two worlds,
were mutually astonished by the differences of physiog-
nomy, of costume, and of tactics. The Franks gazed with
curious eye upon those myriads of turbaned men of dark
complexion, with white burmoose, striped abas, round
shields, curved sabres, and light lances, curvetting on their
horses ; and the Moslem sheiks passed and repassed in front
of the Franco-Teutonic lines, in order to get a closer view of
those giants of the North, with their long fair hair, their
shining helmets, and their coats of steel mail or buffalo hide,
their long swords, and their enormous battle-axes.
"At length, on the seventh day, which was a Saturday, at
the end of October, towards the dawn, the Arabs and the
Moors came from their tents at the cry of the muezzins call-
60 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
ing the soldiers to prayer; they deployed in order on the
plain, and after the morning prayer Abd-er-Rahman gave
the signal. The Christian army received, unmoved, the
shower of arrows which the Mussulmans poured in upon
them; then the masses of the Mussulman cavalry dashed
forward with their war-cry, 'Allah akbar!' 'God is great P
and fell like a hurricane cloud upon the army of the Euro-
peans. The long line of the Franks was unbroken by that
rude shock; motionless as a wall of iron, or a rampart of
ice, the people of the North stood in closely serried ranks
like men of marble. Twenty times the Mussulmans wheeled
to return to the charge with the swiftness of lightning, and
twenty times their impetuous charge was broken upon that
unshaken living wall. The Austrasian giants, erect upon
their heavy Belgian horses, received the slight men of the
South upon the point of the sword, piercing them through
and through with frightful thrusts. The battle, neverthe-
less, continued throughout the day, and Abd-er-Rahman still
hoped to weary out the resistance of the Christians, when,
towards the tenth hour (four in the afternoon), King Eudes,
who, with what was left of his Basques and Aquitaines, had
outflanked the Arab army, threw himself upon the camp of
the Wali and repulsed its guards. The rampart of ice moved
at length : Charles and his Austrasians charged in their turn,
and overthrew all before them. Abd-er-Rahman and the
flower of his followers disappeared, crushed beneath that
mass of iron."
The consequences of that battle of Poitiers were immense.
Charles Martel despatched a courier to Gregory, to announce
to him the victory of the Christian army, which the papal
nuncios, previous to the battle, had so much encouraged by
the distribution of sacred badges blessed by the pope upon
the altar of Saint Peter.
SAINT GREGORY III 61
In all the temples of Italy and France, thanks were offered
up to God. The nuncios returned to Rome laden with pres-
ents, and empowered to make known to all the adversaries
of Gregory that Charles Martel, his son and the defender of
Christendom, himself notably the object of God's benevo-
lence, would never suffer that even the slightest insult
should, with impunity, be offered to God's vicar on earth.
The emperors of the East must learn that another empire
was about to be established in Europe; and the Lombards
perceived that they must show great respect to the new
power that had sprung up in front of them.
We have seen God's protection in the battle given to Max-
entius by Constantine. We see it now crown the heroism
of Martel, fighting with the blessing of Gregory III. After
Valette's heroic defence of Malta we shall behold the lesson
given the Turks at Lepanto; and still later, the great Sobi-
eski deliver Vienna from the vizir of Mahomet IV.
In 739 the pope confirmed the institution of four bishop-
rics, those, viz., of Salzburg, Freisingen, Ratisbon, and Pas-
sau, which had been made in Bavaria by Saint Boniface,
apostolic legate and Apostle of Germany. Gregory ordered
the monks of Monte Cassino to recite, in addition to the
divine office, that of the Blessed Virgin. Urban II imposed
the same obligation upon all priests on occasion of the first
crusade. In the time of Gregory III the regionary cardinals
had been increased in number from seven to fourteen, and
he, further, created four, who were called palatines, and
whose duty was to assist the pope during his celebration of
the office. But the institution of those four deacons did not
long subsist in the Roman Church; they were subsequently
created priests. The number of fourteen deacons subse-
quently varied according to the pope's pleasure, up to the
papacy of Sixtus V. That pope definitively settled that the
62 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
number should never exceed fourteen, which is still the pre-
vailing number.
Gregory governed the Church ten years, eight months,
and ten days. He was one of the most learned men of his
time, and gifted with a prodigious memory. He knew all
the Psalms by heart; he showed himself especially prudent
in affairs of importance, and, like Saint Gregory the Great,
showed great interest with respect to those in slavery.
In three ordinations, in the month of December, he cre-
ated eighty bishops, twenty-four priests, and three deacons.
He died on the 27th of November, 741. The Holy See was
vacant only two days, the right of election, without waiting
for the confirmation by the exarch of Ravenna, being now
fully established.
There are seven letters of this pope in Labbe's Collection
of the Councils, Vol. IV, and Baluze has inserted one of
them in the appendix to the treatise De Primatibus, by Peter
de Marca.
92
SAINT ZACHARY— A.D. 741
THIS pope, son of Polycronius, a native of Syria,
canon regular, then a Benedictine monk, was cre-
ated cardinal-priest by Gregory III. Others say
that he belonged to the Pontina family of San Severino, in
Calabria, and was the fourth Neapolitan pope.
He was elected pontiff on the 30th of November, 741. As
we have seen at the close of the reign of Gregory III, the con-
sent of the exarch of Ravenna was not awaited, and the con-
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SAINT ZACHARY 63
secration of the pontiff took place without that formality,
which thenceforth was totally abolished.
Saint Zachary confirmed the erection of three bishoprics
established in Germany by Saint Boniface; subsequently he
confirmed the archbishopric of Mainz, to which the same
Saint Boniface gave as suffragans the bishops of Langres, of
Cologne, of Worms, of Spires, and of Strasburg.
For nearly two years the Lombards had occupied four
towns of the Papal States — Orta, Amelia, Bomazzo, and
Bieda. Pope Zachary went to Terni to have a meeting with
King Luitprand, still alarmed by the victories of Charles
Martel, and the pope did not return to Rome until he had
obtained the restitution of these towns one after the other,
and even of some provinces also, including Sabina, which,
thirty years previously, had been wrested from Pope Con-
stantine.
In 743 Zachary, leaving the government of Rome to Ste-
phen, patrician and duke, named by the Holy See, made a
journey to Ravenna, again to resist the attacks of the lieu-
tenants of Luitprand. From Ravenna he proceeded to visit
King Luitprand himself at Pavia. The king could not resist
the eloquence and the energetic representations of the pope,
who reproached him with the violation of his promises made
after the battle of Poitiers, with a continual breach of faith,
and with impious and sacrilegious conduct. Luitprand was
convinced, and immediately restored all the usurped terri-
tories. After the death of Luitprand, Rachis, Duke of
Forli, succeeded to the Lombard throne, and Zachary pro-
ceeded to visit that prince at Perugia, to induce him to
raise his siege of that city. The language of the pope was
so persuasive that the prince not only desisted from his
projects, but also abdicated his throne in favor of his brother,
and retired into- the monastery of Monte Cassino. Zachary
64 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
exempted that monastery from the jurisdiction of the bish-
ops, rendering it subject only to the authority of the Holy
See. We have seen the holy and admirable union which was
established between Gregory II, Gregory III, and Charles
Martel. It will astonish no one, therefore, that Zachary was
warmly attached to the son of the conqueror of the Saracens,
the son of that great man who hurled them from France, and
thus saved that kingdom from contact with the pestiferous
errors of Mahometanism.
Boniface consulted Zachary with the most entire confi-
dence. Sometimes, in Germany, priests who were rather
illiterate administered baptism in terms that were not cor-
rect, and Boniface cited some examples. Zachary replied
that the baptism should be deemed valid even when the
priest had said words grammatically so faulty as "Baptizo
te in nomine patria, et filia, et Spiritus Sancta." The pope
also ordered that the priests could not celebrate the holy
mysteries while leaning on a stick or having the head cov-
ered; and he commanded that churchmen should never ap-
pear in the street without the habit commonly called a
soutane.
In 745 Zachary forbade names to be given to any of the
angels, except Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. On the au-
thority of some illuminated manuscripts, it has been main-
tained that four other angels were invoked — Uriel, Saltiel,
Geudiel, and Barachiel. But the invocation of these four
names was subsequently deemed to be a remnant of the su-
perstition of the Basilians. The same prohibition appears in
the acts of the synods of Orleans and Laodicea, and in the
Capitularies of Charlemagne.
Saint Boniface, in his intimate correspondence with the
pope, complained that one of the Roman clergy, named Vir-
gilius, endeavored to create a variance between him and
SAINT ZACHARY 65
Odilo, Duke of Bavaria; and that this priest, moreover,
taught many errors, especially these: "That there was an-
other world, other men under the earth, another sun, and
another moon." Zachary ordered him to reprimand Vir-
gilius, and asked Odilo to send him to Rome to have his doc-
trine examined. Modern writers err in saying that Zachary
condemned the opinion of the antipodes. He had in view
only certain heretics who maintained the existence of a race
of men not descended from Adam and not ransomed by
Christ.
Zachary set free many slaves whom the Venetian mer-
chants would have taken to Africa to sell them to the infi-
dels. The Venetians appeared to depart from the system
of moderation which had led them to be contented with a
wise mode of internal administration under the protection of
the pontiffs.
The ambition of wealth made some merchants of that city
desire to push their commercial relations to distant parts at
all risks. But commerce is not like industry: if in many
points it shows egotism, it tempers this defect by a national
and patriotic spirit that makes it tolerable. The commerce
of the Venetians showed itself from the first, what it is too
frequently everywhere, absolutely cosmopolitan and without
respect for religion and one of its noblest doctrines, that
which condemns slavery. Zachary for a moment arrested
this scandal.
Zachary has left letters, some decrees, a translation from
the Latin into the Greek of the Dialogues of Saint Gregory.
The finest and fullest edition of this last-named work is that
of Canisius, which has important notes.
Saint Zachary governed the Church ten years, three
months, and a few days. In three ordinations he created
eighty-five bishops, thirty priests, and five deacons. He died
11
66 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
on the 14th of March, 752, and was buried at the Vatican on
the following day.
Anastasius the Librarian praises this pope for great affa-
bility, and for moderation, piety, and a spirit of compassion
and forgiveness.
The Holy See was vacant twelve days, if we take no ac-
count of the next papal reign of only two days.
93
STEPHEN II— A.D. 752
ON the 27th of March, 752, Stephen, a Roman cardinal-
priest of Saint Chrysogonus, was elected pontiff;
but two days after he died of apoplexy. Many wri-
ters, on the ground that, though elected, he was not conse-
crated, will not admit that he was pope. Bury is not of their
opinion, and in his nomenclature includes the name of Ste-
phen II. Monsignor Borgia, afterwards cardinal, follows
Francis Vettori in holding that Stephen was pope and
should be considered as such.
Feller, in his Dictionary, and the editor of the Biographie
Universelle, do not reckon Stephen II among the popes ; and
Novaes, by omitting him, is obliged to alter the numbering
of all the popes of the name.
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STEPHEN III 67
94
STEPHEN III— A.D. 752
IT is supposed that Stephen III, a canon regular, and
afterwards created cardinal-deacon by Saint Zachary,
was of the Orsini family. He was a Roman, and son of
Constantine. He was elected pope on the 30th of March,
752.
Stephen, being unable to put a stop to the incursions of
Astulphus, king of the Lombards, resolved to ask the aid of
Pepin, son of Charles Martel. Stephen had before this im-
plored the assistance of the Emperor Constantine Coprony-
mus. That prince, involved in wars which he believed likely
to be prosperous, advised Stephen to lay before Pepin the
misfortunes of the Church. The pope determined to go to
France. Pepin, in order to be agreeable to the pontiff, sent
three successive embassies to Astulphus. That prince
haughtily persisted in his refusals, and Pepin at length re-
solved to march upon Pavia.
On the 20th of July, 746, Pepin had been crowned king of
the French by Saint Zachary, with his sons Charles, after-
wards known as Charlemagne, and Carloman ; and all three,
and their successors, were declared Roman patricians, and
protectors and defenders of the Holy Apostolic See.
When the troops of Pepin were half-way towards the
Alps, he again sent ambassadors ; Pepin did this at the solic-
itation of the pope, who wished to avoid the shedding of
blood. Astulphus replied only by threats. Pepin, unwilling
that a king of France should be insulted, crossed the Alps,
besieged the prince in Pavia, and made him promise to re-
68 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
store Ravenna. Astulphus broke this last promise once, but
was at length obliged to yield. Pepin, on giving to the pope
the recovered provinces, augmented the principality of the
Roman pontiff. From that time the popes, not as mere pro-
prietors, but as sovereigns, organized an undisputed admin-
istration, and were invested with full power, as to civil
affairs, alike for the exarchate and for the city of Rome. Be-
sides the towns of the Emilian province, Anastasius counts
twenty-two others in the donation of Pepin.
It is also to be noticed that this donation of Pepin-'s was a
pure restitution of portions of the pontifical domain. So that
the principality of the Church was not then, in the proper
sense of the word, instituted, but extended and considerably
increased.
Stephen, having received the restitution of this domain,
granted the administration of Ravenna to the archbishop
and tribunes of the city, and the archbishop even took the
name of exarch, but in quality of a subject of the Church.
King Astulphus dying in 756, the Holy Father aided, by
means of the French troops, in causing Desiderius, the ruler
of some of the Lombards in Tuscany, to be recognized as
king of the whole nation. It had been stipulated between
the pope and Desiderius that the latter should keep no gar-
risons in the cities and towns given by Pepin which Astul-
phus had held.
Those cities and towns were Faenza, Imola, Ferrara,
Osimo, Ravenna, Umana, and Bologna. As the result of
those arrangements, only Faenza and the duchy of Ferrara
were restored to the pope. As to the remainder, Desiderius,
having become peaceable king of the Lombards, broke his
promise.
However, Stephen, never unmindful of the interests of the
Church, condemned the conciliabule held at Constantinople
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SAINT PAUL I 69
by Constantine Copronymus, in which an order to destroy
the holy images was renewed, and he endeavored to bring the
emperor to a reconciliation, which was desired by the whole
Church, even at Byzantium.
Even before Stephen became pope, he was so much be-
loved by the Roman people that when his election became
known they carried him on their shoulders to the Basilica of
Saint John Lateran. Thence, at a later date, originated the
use of the sedia gestatoria, which still exists, and which
gives to the pomps of Rome an air of magnificence un-
equalled at the court of any other sovereign.
Stephen III governed the Church five years and twenty
days. In one ordination, in the month of March, he created
four bishops (Natalis Alexander says twenty), two priests,
and two deacons. This pope died on the 25th of April, 757.
He was interred in the Vatican. The Holy See was vacant
thirty-five days.
95
SAINT PAUL I— A.D. 757
SAINT PAUL I, created cardinal-deacon, was a Ro-
man, and brother of the preceding pope. This example
of brother succeeding brother in the chair of Saint Peter
was repeated in the eleventh century by the brothers John
XIX and Benedict VIII. Paul I was consecrated pope on
the 29th of May, 757. As soon as he was elected, and even
before he was consecrated, he wrote a letter to Pepin, king of
the French, begging him to continue his protection to the
70 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Romans. In the fourth year of his pontificate he wrote an-
other letter to the same prince, conjuring him to compel
Desiderius to restore all the church patrimony and all the
Church's rights in various places, which property and rights
Desiderius withheld.
In 761 the Holy Father founded in his own paternal house
the monastery and church of Saints Stephen and Sylvester.
He transported thither the bodies of those saints, endowed
the institution richly, and gave it to the Greek monks that
they might celebrate the office there according to their ritual.
Subsequently the monastery belonged to the nuns of Saint
Clare. The pope also removed into the church the body of
Saint Petronilla, and other bodies of martyrs that had lain
scattered in the ancient cemeteries since the invasions of the
Lombards. Saint Paul received from Pepin the cloth on
which the king's daughter Gisella had been laid after her
baptism. It appears that Pepin had asked the pope for some
books, and His Holiness replied that he sent as many as he
could find. "Who," exclaims Tiraboschi, "would not expect
to see an ample catalogue of books, a present worthy of the
pope who sent it and of the king who received it ?" Well, this
great treasure consisted of an antiphonary (a church book in
which portions of the office are arranged with notes for
plain-singing), Aristotle's Logic, the books of Saint Diony-
sius the Areopagite, with a small number of other books.
At the same time Saint Paul urged Pepin to introduce the
Roman chant into his kingdom.
Nor did the pope spare any pains towards effecting the
conversion of the emperor of the East, Constantine Cop-
ronymus, exhorting him to abandon the heresy of the Icono-
clasts. The pope sent him legates charged with the duty of
bringing the emperor back to the Catholic worship and the
veneration of the sacred images. But Constantine, still ob-
*( LIBRARY G
SAINT PAUL I 71
stinate in his error, despised the paternal observations of the
pope, and treated with inhumanity and violence the legates
sent to Constantinople. All the questions discussed in coun-
cils were not within the capacity of the common people, but
all understood the blows of axes aimed at statues, and the
most learned and the most ignorant were alike judges. Suf-
ficient notice has not been bestowed upon the part that Italy
reserved for herself in that quarrel about the images. To
take away from the people those religious pleasures which
sculpture and painting presented for their gaze in the
temples and on the public places was to wound them in the
most sensitive part of their pious feelings.
In the collection of Gretser there are twenty-two letters of
Saint Paul.
This pope governed the Church ten years and one month,
with great wisdom and prudence.
In one ordination he created three bishops, twelve priests,
and two deacons.
He died on the 28th of June, 767, and was the first who was
interred in Saint Paul beyond the walls. A few months
afterwards his body was removed to Saint Peter's and placed
near the great altar.
A short time before the death of Saint Paul, an antipope,
named Constantine, made his appearance; he had been
elected by the influence of his brother Toton, Duke of Nepi.
At evening Constantine was only a layman; he caused
himself to be made deacon, disdained to be made priest, had
himself ordained bishop by George, Bishop of Palestrina,
and then he was crowned by the same George, assisted by
Eustasius and Citonatus, bishops of Albano and Porto.
Shortly after, his father having been killed, Constantine was
confined in a monastery. During his intrusion he created
eight bishops, eight priests, and four deacons.
72 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
After him, in 768, appeared another antipope, monk-abbot
of Saint Vito, and cardinal-priest ; but on the very day of his
attempting the intrusion he was repulsed and sent back to
his monastery.
96
STEPHEN IV— A.D. 768
STEPHEN, canon regular of Saint John Lateran, then a
religious in the monastery of Saint Chrysogonus, had
been employed by four of his predecessors in the
papacy, and became cardinal-priest. He was a Sicilian, and
the son of Oliva. He was elected pope on the 5th, and conse-
crated on the 7th of August, 768.
In the following year, in a council held in the month of
April, in Saint John Lateran, it was decided that no one
should be promoted to the pontificate unless he had previ-
ously been ordained priest or deacon. That measure was
advised and adopted on account of the pretension of the anti-
pope Constantine. In that council Constantine was treated
with great severity. The populace were exceedingly excited
against that intruder, who, in a riot, was deprived of sight in
the midst of a great fury which Stephen could not allay, as he
was not yet promoted. Certainly the disposition of Stephen
warrants us in believing that, if Constantine could have ap-
pealed to a true pontifical power, he would not have suffered
the cruel treatment that he could not escape.
In 769 Desiderius, king of the Lombards, under the pre-
text of venerating the tomb of the apostles, went to Rome.
There that evil prince caused many Roman nobles to be ar-
vTTEPHAN VvV * im* PP * vnCVLVv? *
STEPHEN IV 73
rested, and, following the ferocious example given by the
populace, he had them deprived of sight, apparently to re-
venge Constantine.
Not contented with that reprisal, which is only too con-
sonant with the ferocity of the time, he invited the pope to
confer with him upon very serious business. When the pope
complied with that invitation, Desiderius ordered him to be
confined, with the intention of having him put to death, which
crime would have been committed had not two faithful eccle-
siastics, Christopher and Sergius, courageously opposed it.
That fact is proved by a letter of Adrian I, who reproaches
Desiderius with his iniquitous and ferocious conduct towards
Adrian's predecessor, Stephen.
The courage of the two priests was not long left unre-
warded in the manner that noble and virtuous actions were
rewarded at that time. Desiderius had both the priests de-
prived of their eyes.
In 770 Bertrade, widow of King Pepin, visited Italy, and
was received at Pavia with great magnificence by King De-
siderius, who designed to sow discord between the pope and
the king of the French, persuaded as he was that by that
means, he could manage the affairs of Italy to his own liking.
Marriage was proposed to the queen between her daughter
Gisella and Adelgise, son of Desiderius, and between a
daughter of his and a son of Queen Bertrade. The latter in-
considerately consented to both marriages; but as soon as
Stephen was made aware of the project, he opposed it with
the whole weight of the apostolic authority.
In a letter addressed to Charlemagne and to Carloman,
Stephen exhorted them not to repudiate their wives in order
to marry other princesses, contrary to the laws of the
Church. He advised the princes not to attach themselves so
closely to a king who on many points was an enemy to the
74 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Catholic religion. He also recommended them to follow the
example of Pepin, who had refused to give his daughter Gi-
sella in marriage to the Emperor Constantine Copronymus,
solely because that emperor was not strictly in the Roman
communion. The Holy Father, after laying the letter upon
the confessional of Saint Peter, and upon the altar upon
which he had celebrated the Mass, took the letter again with
solemnity, and despatched it to the princes by his legates,
Peter, a priest, and Pamphilus, regionary defender. He
ordered them to be energetic in urging the tenor of his
remonstrance, which terminated with these emphatic words :
"If any one shall venture to do aught in opposition to this
letter, et him learn that, in addition to the authority of the
blessed Apostle Peter, the tie of excommunication is bound
around him, that he is excluded from the kingdom of God,
and condemned to groan in eternal fire, in company with
demons and others of the impious."
This formula, with slight differences, has become familiar
to the Roman pontiffs, to show their supreme authority over
all the faithful in this life, and show them what they have to
fear in the next.
Unfortunately, Charles, despising these entreaties and
threats, although he was already married to another prin-
cess, married the daughter of King Desiderius, but after a
year repudiated her, to marry Indelgarde, a princess of the
Suabian race.
Stephen governed the Church three years, five months, and
about twenty-seven days. In one ordination he created sev-
eral bishops, five priests, and four deacons. He died on the
i st of February, 772.
Anastasius says that this pope was very learned in the
Holy Scriptures and thoroughly acquainted with ecclesias-
tical traditions.
.-.~" "■ '■■
HADPIANV^ -I-PP ^OMANYv^
ADRIAN I 75
His name occurs in some martyrologies with the title of
saint. He was interred at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant seven days.
97
ADRIAN I— A.D. 772
A DRIAN I, clerk, notary, regionary, and then cardinal-
/ \ deacon, was a Roman, son of Theodore, and belonged
JL JL to the noble family of Colonna. He was elected pope
on the gth of February, 772. This pontiff, notwithstanding
the rudeness of the time, was endowed with a merit which
enhanced the effect of the beauty of his person. His prin-
ciple was that great point of ancient discipline, forgiveness
of the guilty. He was always desirous of saving life, in order
to give time for repentance. Under his authority no prisoner
ever suffered torture. He set at liberty some Roman nobles
accused of various offences. On that subject Anastasius and
De Marca repeat that at that time the popes exercised full
power in civil affairs, unless when they were hindered by
popular seditions.
Desiderius, king of the Lombards, intended to seize upon
Rome and expel the pope, who applied to Charlemagne.
That victorious and pious prince besieged Desiderius in
Pavia, in 773, made him prisoner, sent him to the monastery
of Corbie, in France, and put an end to the authority of the
Lombards.
The Lombard kingdom had existed two hundred and six
years. The name of Lombards, however, was not extinct
with their princes. Not only did they remain on the lands
76 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
which the Lombards had possessed in the environs of the Po,
but the dukes of Benevento gave the name of Lombardy to
the lands over which they had dominion. In this revolution
the Greek emperors entirely lost the hope which till then
they had cherished of recovering the exarchate and the
pentapolis.
In 773 Charles gave the fine domain of the duchy of Bene-
vento to the Holy See.
In 781 Adrian baptized Pepin, son of Charlemagne, and
anointed him as King of Italy. He also crowned another of
Charles's sons, Louis, as King of Aquitaine. Adrian ordered
that the pontiffs should put up prayers for the kings of
France in the pontifical High Mass that is celebrated at the
beginning of Lent. This order was obeyed in other Catholic
kingdoms by the priests who were subjects of those king-
doms.
Adrian received Charlemagne at Rome three times: the
first time in 773, the king having gone to celebrate Easter at
Rome; the second time in 781, when he visited Rome in com-
pany with his wife and his son Pepin ; and the third time in
787, when he went to repress the arrogance of Arigisa, Duke
of Benevento, who had revolted against the Holy See.
In all those expeditions the principal object of Charles was
to defend the domains of the Church, which had been given
by King Pepin, and increased by Charles himself, the pious
donor of the territory of Sabina and of the duchies of Spoleto
and Benevento.
Adrian having, by the zeal of Constantine VI and his
mother Irene, obtained peace with the Eastern Church, re-
solved to assemble the seventh general council for the putting
down of the Iconoclasts. The council commenced its session
in 786, and was transferred to Nice in 787. It was attended
by three hundred and fifty bishops. They established the
ADRIAN I 77
veneration of images, and to the symbol of the faith they
added these words : "Qui a Patre Filioque procedit" — "Who
proceedeth from the Father and the Son."
In the council that was celebrated at Frankfort in 794,
Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, and Elipand, Arch-
bishop of Toledo, were condemned for not admitting the
veneration of images, and for maintaining that Christ was
only the adoptive son of God.
The reign of Adrian was longer than that of any pope
from Saint Peter. He reigned twenty-three years, ten
months, and seventeen days.
In two ordinations he created one hundred and eighty-five
bishops, twenty-four priests, and seven deacons. He was so
charitable that he everywhere increased the revenues of the
poor, and he was so munificent that upon the church of the
Vatican alone he expended two thousand five hundred and
eighty pounds of gold and nine hundred and seven pounds
of silver. He expended nearly as much upon the ornamenting
of Saint Paul outside the walls. This illustrious bene-
factor devoted eleven hundred pounds of gold to the rebuild-
ing of the walls of the city, and an immense sum to defray
the expense of repairing the basilica and churches. He died
on the 25th of December, 795, and was buried in the Vatican.
On his tomb was placed an inscription of nineteen couplets,
said to have been composed by Charlemagne, who wept bit-
terly on the death of the pope, whom he had always looked
upon as a father.
There was no vacancy in the Holy See.
78 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
98
SAINT LEO III— A.D. 795
SAINT LEO, a Roman, son of Asupius, was at first
canon of Saint John Lateran, and then, if we may rely
upon Chacon, a Benedictine monk. Modern critics
affirm that in his youth Leo lived in the pontifical palace, for
the purpose of being especially instructed in the sciences and
polite literature ; subsequently he was made subdeacon, then
deacon, and at length raised to the dignity of cardinal-priest
of Saint Susanna. Unanimously elected pope on the 26th of
December, he was consecrated on the following day, and,
after his consecration, crowned upon the lower steps of the
Vatican Basilica.
This pontiff was solicited by Charlemagne to confirm to
him the title of Roman Patrician, which had been conferred
upon him by Stephen III, and which imposed upon him the
obligation to defend the Church. Leo sent to him the keys
of Saint Peter and the standard of Rome. Bellarmine and
Baronius maintain that those "keys" were no other than
boxes filled with relics. Andrew Vittorelli thinks that they
were the actual keys with which the gates of the Vatican
Basilica were locked and unlocked.
Novaes adds : "Protestants assert that by those keys and
that standard of Rome the pontiff meant to put Charles in
possession of the Church and city of Rome, but that conjec-
ture is refuted by Bzovius."
That writer expresses his wonder that the innovators
could be ignorant of the fact that in those times it was the
custom to present those keys as a token of devotion, not only
LEO-ni-PAPA-ROMAJNTW
SAINT LEO III 79
to the emperors, but also to other princes who made no
claim of right over the Roman Church.
It is certain that the custom of sending boxes in the form
of keys, and containing relics, dates from Saint Gregory,
who sent such to King Childebert and to Recared, King of
Spain. Saint Gregory the Great assuredly did not intend to
recognize those princes as his suzerains ! The "keys" sent to
Charles Martel had the same form as those sent by Saint
Gregory, and were sent with the same intention. They
might be a kind of symbol to recall the tomb of Saint Peter.
Gregory VII, in 1079, sent a similar "key" to Alphonso, King
of Castile. Finally, Cenni thus sums up: "Sovereign princes
never received from the pontiffs any other sort of keys ; and
to doubt that is like doubting the light of the sun."
In 799 a plot was set on foot at Rome for the assassination
of Saint Leo. In fact, at the moment when he went forth
from the palace to head the procession on Saint Mark's day,
Pascal, the primate, and Campolo, chaplain of the Roman
Church, both angry that they had not succeeded their uncle,
Adrian, sent armed men who assaulted the pope and en-
deavored to deprive him of his eyes and tongue. Legends
relate that they succeeded, but that, by a miracle performed
by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Saint Leo was completely
cured. Novaes combats Fleury, who, in fact, relates the fact
differently, and Novaes quotes the testimony of Pagi, of
Anastasius the Librarian, and especially of Alcuin, who ex-
plains the miracle in some verses in the poem devoted to a
description of the departure of Leo.
After recovering his health, Leo departed for France,
whence he returned to Rome, where he made a triumphal
entry on Saint Andrew's day, the 29th of November. On
Christmas day, A.D. 800, Leo anointed and crowned Charle-
magne emperor of the Romans, and re-established in his
80 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
favor the Western Empire, which had languished without a
head during three hundred and twenty-five years, from the
death of the last emperor, Augustulus. Charles, aban-
doning the title of Patrician, received that of Emperor and
Augustus.
In "Italy" we read : "The last year of the eighth century is
the epoch of a revolution the most important that had taken
place in Europe since the Roman sovereigns had removed the
seat of empire to Constantinople. The French monarch, the
greatest prince that existed in the world, illustrious alike as
a warrior and a legislator, deprived the Greeks of the last
title of sovereignty that they possessed in Italy, and thus
took away from them forever that name of Romans, which
they had persisted in using in their treaties and in the pre-
amble of their decrees. Pope Saint Leo III then reigned.
A conspiracy having been formed against him, he was on the
point of perishing, and went to Paderborn to entreat the
succor of Charlemagne, who proceeded to Rome. On Christ-
mas day, 800, while Charles was at prayer at the confessional
of Saint Peter, the pope, accompanied by the bishops, priests,
and French and Roman lords, approached him, and placed
upon his head a golden crown, and all the people exclaimed :
'Victory and long life to Charles the most pious, Augustus
great and pacific, whom God crowneth.' "
The pope then anointed Charles with holy oil. All authors
agree in saying that Charles then pronounced the oath taken
by his successors after him: "I, emperor, promise in the
name of Jesus Christ, before God and the Apostle Saint
Peter, that I will protect and defend the Holy Roman Church
against all, as far as God gives me strength and power."
The festivities lasted far through January.
But what had been the time chosen by Rome to accom-
plish so decisive a revolution, thus to establish the indepen-
SAINT LEO III 81
dence of the Holy See? The time when a woman reigned,
the Empress Irene. This princess, born in Athens, of such rare
beauty that to see her was to admire, offered a contrast of
good qualities and barbarous inclinations. Ascending the
throne in 780 with her son Constantine VI, she at first re-
nounced the persecution against the Iconoclasts. This con-
descension to the Moslem did not avail the Greeks of New
Rome, whom the Saracens were bent on expelling from By-
zantium. Irene, subsequently, jealous of her son, put him to
death, to be sole monarch. The details of Constantine's
death are fearful : his eyes were torn out with such violence
that he died. The news of this crime had just reached Rome,
where it excited general indignation, except amongst those
who had conspired and endeavored to assassinate Leo.
It is also said that many of the Roman enemies of the Holy
See endeavored to effect a matrimonial alliance between
Irene and Charlemagne; but that princess, married to Leo
Chazarus in 769, was forty-six years old and could not expect
to bear issue.
Rome, rejecting on the one hand the authority of this cruel
princess, this empress almost powerless abroad, who, per-
haps, merely affected religious sentiments ; and, on the other
hand, by adopting Charlemagne, magnanimous and benefi-
cent, commanding a people composed of the noble adver-
saries of Caesar in Gaul, and the bravest colonies from Ger-
many, still proud of the victory of Poitiers — Rome well knew
the interests of Italy, and paid a most striking homage to
public morality.
Above all, God cemented the strength of his Church and
recompensed the conquerors of those ignorant sectaries of
the Arabian impostor.
A frightful earthquake, in 801, ruined several towns in
Italy, and especially the Basilica of Saint Paul beyond the
82 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
walls. After having ordered it to be rebuilt, the pope or-
dered that during the three days preceding the feast of the
Ascension the litany should be chanted in solemn procession,
just as for a similar motive Saint Mamertus, Bishop of
Vienne, had established in France the celebration of the
Rogation days.
Saint Leo III was a patron of the fine arts. He adorned
Rome with sculptures and paintings; and, according to
Muratori, he had paintings on glass placed in the windows
of several churches.
To show the purity of his Catholic faith, he placed in the
Vatican Basilica two silver tables of the weight of ninety-
four pounds. Upon one of them the Nicene or Constanti-
nopolitan Creed was written in the Greek language, and
upon the other in Latin. Upon each of them the symbol was
that formed by the hundred and twenty Fathers of the Coun-
cil of Constantinople.
In 804 Saint Leo made a second journey to France, to cele-
brate Christmas with the Emperor Charlemagne, who met
His Holiness at Rheims. Thence the two sovereigns passed
into Germany.
In 813 he established the feast of the Assumption, which
had been celebrated as early as Sergius I, but had been al-
lowed to fall into desuetude.
Although oppressed by infirmities, he had the habit of
celebrating Mass sometimes eight or nine times a day, a cus-
tom of many priests at that time, but abolished by Pope
Alexander II, the one hundred and fifty-eighth pope.
Saint Leo III governed the Church twenty years, five
months, and sixteen days.
In three ordinations he created twenty-six bishops, thirty
priests, and ten deacons. He died on the nth of June, 816,
leaving the reputation of a pontiff who was friendly to men
r
vfTEPHANVvf
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-POMANVvr-
STEPHEN V 83
of letters, and himself learned, eloquent, affable, mild, and
generous. He was interred at the Vatican, and the Congre-
gation of the Rites subsequently caused his name to be
placed in the Roman Martyrology. The Holy See remained
vacant six days.
99
STEPHEN V— A.D. 816
STEPHEN V, son of Julius Marinus, first a subdeacon
, and then deacon under Leo III, was elected pope on
' the 2 2d of June, 816. To prevent the conspiracies that
were forming against him, he made the Romans take the
oath of fidelity to Louis, son of Charlemagne, whom he then
anointed, and crowned with a precious crown that he himself
took to Rheims. He also crowned the Empress Ermen-
garde, wife of Louis.
Stephen founded the monastery of Saint Praxedes, in
which he assembled a congregation of Greek monks, who,
according to their own ritual, chanted and sang both by
night and by day. That monastery now belongs to the
monks of Vallombrosa.
He had scarcely returned to Rome from Rheims when he
died, on the 24th of January, 817. He governed the Church a
little more than seven months. In one ordination this pope
created five bishops, nine priests, and four deacons. He was
interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant only
one day.
Stephen V had a high reputation for kindness and clem-
ency. He had been forced to leave Rome for Rheims to
escape the machinations of wicked men ; yet his first act on
approaching Louis was to ask him for the pardon of the con-
84 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
spirators, whom the emperor had threatened to have re-
moved to France and punished.
Educated in the courts of Adrian and of Leo, he had ac-
quired their noble and distinguished manners, and to those
advantages he joined a sweet humility, a virtue which recom-
mended him even to those who tried to brave his power.
100
SAINT PASCAL I— A.D. 817
PASCAL I, Roman, son of Maximin Bonosus, was a
Benedictine monk, and abbot in the monastery of
Saint Stephen, near Saint Peter's, at Rome. He was
afterwards created cardinal-priest of Saint Praxedes by
Leo III.
Pascal was elected against his own will, on the 25th of
January, 817.
On Easter day, 823, he crowned the Emperor Lothaire,
eldest son of Louis the Pious, and temporarily granted him
the authority that the old emperors had exerted over the
Romans, in order to repress the audacity of those who con-
spired against the sovereign pontiffs. The acts of the em-
perors of that time were admirable and generous in giving
the sovereignty of Rome to the popes; and the foresight of
the emperors was no less salutary, which occasionally
seemed to resume that authority, only the better ultimately
to secure it to the successors of Saint Peter.
Under the pontificate of Pascal, Rome was torn by cruel
factions, those fatal consequences of anarchy, but the sacred
robe was safely sheltered beneath the imperial sceptre.
4ft
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PA^CHALLS^PPP - TVSCVS+
SAINT PASCAL I 85
This holy pontiff gave an asylum at Rome to the Greeks
who had been exiled by the Iconoclasts. He received from
Louis the Pious, by means of a diploma, which was the
source of all the other imperial diplomas, a confirmation of
the gifts and restitutions made by the emperor's predecessors
to the Holy See, with the addition of Sicily and Sardinia.
Pascal has been reproached with want of firmness. At
Rome there were two parties hostile to the pope : an imperial
party, which, ignorant of the beneficent intentions of the
emperor, seemed to demand the absolute authority of that
prince ; and a Roman party, which wanted an equally vague
independence. It was impossible but that, amidst all that
disorder, lovers of order also should be found, who demanded
respect for the pontifical authority.
Abominable murders having been committed upon Theo-
dore, primate, and Leo, nomenclator, Pascal publicly mani-
fested the horror with which those crimes inspired him, and
history assures us that he deplored them with sincerity.
Moreover, in this case there was a denial of justice, which
paints those times in most odious colors. Some friends of
Pascal were against giving up the murderers to the Emperor
Lothaire that they might be punished, because the murderers
were of the faith of Saint Peter, and their victims had been
guilty of high treason. Lothaire, after hearing the deputies
of the pope, made no further inquiries, following his natural
inclination to clemency, a dangerous and fatal -virtue in
troublous times. Pascal, overwhelmed with cares and sor-
row, did not long survive that event.
This pope governed the Church seven years and seventeen
days. In two ordinations he created fifteen bishops, seven
priests, and seven deacons. He died on the 10th of February,
824.
He was interred at Saint Praxedes, in a tomb which he had
86 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
himself caused to be constructed. The Holy See remained
vacant five days.
It is admitted that the principal clergy of Rome, who had
called themselves cardinals long before the reign of Pascal,
were publicly so entitled under that pontiff. The word car-
dinals of the Church means hinges of the Church. They
were at that time few in number. In 1277, under Nicholas
III, there were but seven; under John XXII, in 1330, there
were twenty ; at the Council of Constance there were thirty-
four. Leo X added thirty-one, making sixty-five in all.
Paul IV, in 1556, added five; Sixtus V, in 1586, considering
that seventy was the number of the elders of Israel, ordered
that for the future that should be the fixed number, as it still
remains.
Of the seventy, six have the title of cardinal-bishops, fifty
have the title of cardinal-priests, and fourteen have the title
of cardinal-deacons. We shall hereafter see how that wise
order has been established.
101
EUGENE II— A.D. 824
EUGENE II, a Roman, son of Bohemond, canon regu-
lar, and subsequently cardinal-priest of Saint Sabi-
f nus, was elected pope on the 16th of February, 824.
He paid great honors to Lothaire, son of Louis the Pious,
employed by his father to destroy the schism which had
threatened the Church at the moment of the election of Eu-
gene. At this time, too, Lothaire, in concert with the pope,
published a law calculated to prevent the disturbances that
E\ GENIVvV - II - PAPA HOMANV^
EUGENE II 87
often occurred during the elections. The imperial ambassa-
dors were to be present on such occasions, that their author-
ity might put a stop to tumult. Some authors maintain that
it is to this epoch that is to be attributed the institution of a
seminary for clerks, as the result of a canon of the council
which was then assembled at Rome. Various authors also
dispute respecting the question whether it was Eugene who
established ordeal by cold water as a test of the innocence of
an accused person. Mabillon declares in the affirmative, and
relies on an ancient MS. of Rheims. Natalis Alexander is of
the contrary opinion. Pagi, in his Breviarium Pont., is of
like opinion with Mabillon, and endeavors to combat four
principal arguments adduced by Natalis Alexander. Van
Espen does not decide, but confines himself to saying that
this, like other vulgar tests, was in use for several centuries.
Christ ianus Lupus maintains that the proof by the Eucharist
is of very ancient use. We shall find Gregory VII proposing
this proof to King Henry IV. Du Cange, in his Glos-
sary, says that ordeal by cold water, one of the vulgar purga-
tions called the Judgment of God, consisted in this: "The
person accused of a crime was plunged into the water : if he
swam, he was declared guilty; if he sank, he was innocent."
Novaes, in his turn, confines himself to noticing that that
custom was prohibited by Innocent III in the Council of
Lateran. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, had previously
written against the trials of both fire and water. Feller says
on this subject : "One would have no very high opinion of the
intellect of Eugene if it is true, as many authors affirm, that
he established the trial by cold water. Certain it is that in
those times the means of ascertaining the truth were so far
from enlightened or secure that one is tempted to approve
the recourse to supernatural means. Even now that our
jurisprudence is so proud of its enlightenment, the result of
88 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
many trials, both civil and criminal, is no more trustworthy
than that of ordeal by cold water."
Eugene governed the Church three years, some months,
and a few days. His great charity obtained him the surname
of the Father of the People. He died on the 27th of August,
827, and was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See re-
mained vacant four days.
According to Chacon, the election of Eugene was dis-
turbed by the intrigues of an antipope named Sinsinius.
However, no mention of that intrusion is made by Ana-
stasius, by Martin Polonius, or by Platina. At any rate, it
must have lasted only a few days.
102
VALENTINE— A.D. 827
VALENTINE, a Roman, son of Peter Leontius, of
the Rione de Via Lata, made cardinal-deacon by
Pascal I, was elected pope on the 1st of September,
827. It appears that he was consecrated without the inter-
vention of the authorities who represented Lothaire, not-
withstanding the law of which we spoke in our sketch of this
pope's immediate predecessor. The ceremonials, as we have
the details from Mabillon, consisted in the consecration of
the new pontiff at Saint Peter's, the oblation of the sacrifice
by the new pope, a banquet, and a distribution to the senate
and people of presents which were vulgarly called presby-
teries.
Valentine governed the Church forty days. This prince
VALENTIN VS - I-PP -ROMAINA^
GRECxORI\^ -IIII -PAPA-ROMANV^
GREGORY IV 89
was worthy of a longer pontificate, on account of his piety,
his clemency, and his liberality. He died on the 10th of
September, 827, and was interred at the Vatican. The Holy
See remained vacant three days.
103
GREGORY IV— A.D. 827
GREGORY IV, son of John, was a noble Roman who
r became a Benedictine monk in the monastery of
Fossa Nuova, at Terracina. Pascal I had created
him cardinal-priest of Saint Mark. On the 14th of Septem-
ber, A.D. 827, he was elected pope in spite of his re-
fusal; clergy, senate, and people refusing to yield to his
unwillingness. He himself favored the delaying of his
consecration under pretext of waiting for the ambassador of
the emperor, who was to demand from the Romans whether
the election had been regular. In the meantime this humble
monk, like his predecessor, Saint Gregory the Great, con-
cealed himself in an obscure place ; but he was discovered and
conducted to the pontifical throne, upon which he was placed
almost by force.
In the year 828 he rebuilt and walled in the town of Ostia,
which, from his own name, he called Gregoriopolis ; his ob-
ject was to prevent the Saracens from continuing their in-
roads by ascending the Tiber, which falls into the sea near
that town.
It was during this pope's reign that the Venetians sent a
vessel to Alexandria furtively to carry off the body of Saint
go LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Mark the Evangelist, which they transported into the ducal
basilica erected in honor of the saint.
Subsequently to that event the pope restored at Rome the
Church of Saint Mark, which had been his parish; and he
made rich presents to it, a holy ciborium inclosed in a silver
tabernacle. It was into this church that the pope transferred
the body of Saint Hermes.
At the close of the year 828 the Emperor Louis held an
assembly at Aix-la-Chapelle for an inquiry into the evils of
the State and the practicable remedies for them. Vala, abbot
of Corbie, venerable for age, birth, and merit, spoke strongly,
complaining that the ecclesiastical and secular powers en-
croached upon each other. The emperor, he urged, often
quitted his own duties to interfere in affairs of religion, in
which he properly had no concern, and the bishops interfered
in purely temporal affairs. Possessions consecrated to God
were perverted into gifts to laymen.
To this the lay lords replied: "The State is so weakened
that it can no longer subsist without the help of the property
and vassals of the Church." "Tell me, I pray," rejoined
Vala, "if any one has put my offering on the altar, and an-
other comes and takes it, how do you call the act?" "A sacri-
lege," they replied. "My lord," cried Vala, addressing the
emperor, "let no man deceive you! It is very dangerous to
divert to profane uses things once consecrated to God, and
thus act against the authority of so many canons, and con-
temn so many anathemas. If it be true that the State cannot
subsist without the help of ecclesiastical property, means
must be modestly sought, without injury to religion; if
bishops owe any martial service, let them discharge it with-
out derogating from the sanctity of their profession ; that is,
dispense with their personal service, as Charlemagne did."
Vala then set forth the dangers to which monasteries were
GREGORY IV 91
exposed when given over to laymen. He declared that
bishoprics were not given according to the canons, and that
elections had become irregular.
Vala finally denounced the palace chaplains, or clergy, fol-
lowing the court, who were neither monks living under rule,
nor clerks subject to a bishop, and who were guided solely by
interest or ambition ; for he maintained that every Christian
should be either a canon, that is to say, clerk observing the
canons, a monk, or a layman; otherwise, said he, the Chris-
tian is headless, and consequently an acephalous heretic.
In 829 the Emperor Louis received ambassadors from the
Swedes, who, among other business with which they were
intrusted, declared that many people of their nation desired
to embrace the Christian religion and to recognize the au-
thority of Pope Gregory IV. Saint Anscarius and Vitmar,
a monk of Corbie, were sent to Sweden as missionaries, with
full powers from the pope, and with presents from the
emperor. The mission had great success, which rejoiced the
hearts of the faithful. Dissensions arising between Louis
and his children, Gregory repaired to France to restore peace
among the princes; but the emperor was deposed by his
sons, who divided the empire among them, and Lothaire re-
ceived the title of emperor.
Gregory returned to Rome, thinking that from that capital
his voice would have the more power ; in fact, he annulled the
sentence which had taken the sceptre from Louis, and that
prince was then restored to the throne. This pontiff insti-
tuted for all Christendom the feast of All Saints, to be cele-
brated on the 1 st of November, as is still the custom.
It was he who translated the body of Gregory the Great
from the place where it had been buried, a humble gallery in
Saint Peter's, and placed it within the church itself, in a
splendid oratory, the flooring of which was mosaic, orna-
92 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
mented with gold, while the altar was adorned with a number
of silver tablets. The body of the saint was placed beneath
this altar. His feast was celebrated every year, and his
pallium was given to be kissed by the faithful, as were his
reliquary and his girdles, the plainness of which excited ad-
miration. In the same oratory this pope also placed the
bodies of Saint Sebastian and Saint Tiburtius.
Under this pontificate, in 842, the Empress Theodora, re-
gent for her son Michael, revived at Constantinople the
veneration of images. The persecution had lasted nearly
one hundred and twenty years. The first Sunday in Lent,
Methodius, the new patriarch, passed the night in prayer
with the empress and all the people; in the morning they
went in procession to Saint Sophia, where Mass was cele-
brated and the images solemnly rehabilitated. This feast
was called the Feast of Orthodoxy, as if to say the feast of
the triumph of the Catholic religion. Rome thus obtained the
reward of her courage, of her admirable constancy, and of
her passion for the fine arts, and the heart of the pope and of
the Romans was filled with a most soothing joy.
Gregory IV, who governed sixteen years and twenty-four
days, died in 844, and was interred at the Vatican; the epi-
taph on his tomb is common to him and to Boniface IV, and
was placed there by Boniface VIII. There are some letters
of Gregory IV in the Collection of the Councils, by Labbe,
in the Miscellanea of Baluze, and in Mabillon. Platina be-
stows great eulogium on this pope, whose pontificate is de-
scribed in prose and verse by the monk, Rabanus.
v?ERGIVy? * n - PP-ROMANV^
SERGIUS II 93
104
SERGIUS II— A.D. 844
SERGIUS II, a Roman of an illustrious family, a canon
regular, and then created by Pascal I cardinal-priest
of Saint Martin a' i Monti, was elected pope on the
1 6th of February, 844. The same year he crowned as king
of the Lombards, and not as emperor, Louis II, son of Lo-
thaire. Louis having asked the pope to allow the Romans to
swear fidelity to him, the pope refused, because Lothaire was
living. He would have only Lothaire as protector of the
Church.
Lecointe, in his Annals, gives an analysis of the oath of
fidelity. The Romans promised the French kings to be obe-
dient to the pontiffs, lords of Rome ; and the pope and people
of Rome promised the kings of France to be constant in their
friendship to those kings.
The same year Sergius caused to be arranged, in the form
of a staircase, with a porch, and before the Church of Saint
John Lateran, the twenty-eight steps sanctified at Jerusalem
by the Redeemer ascending upon them to the house of Pilate.
Those stairs were transported to Rome by order of Saint
Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, and had remained
concealed in that basilica. But we shall have to speak of that
holy monument in the reign of Sixtus V. Sergius governed
about three years. In one ordination he created twenty-
three bishops, eight priests, and three deacons. He was
humble, affable, prudent, a friend to the people, charitable to
the poor, and a consoler of the unhappy ; such is the character
given to him by Anastasius the Librarian. This pope died
94 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
on the 27th of January, 847, and was buried at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant (if we include the day of the
successor's consecration) two months and fourteen days, but
there was no vacancy for the election.
It has been maintained that Sergius gave to Drogon,
Bishop of Metz, who accompanied Louis, letters as vicar
apostolic, conferring upon him the power of vicar apostolic
beyond the Rhine, with authority over the metropolitans,
and even the right to assemble a council, from which, how-
ever, there was right to appeal to the pope.
105
SAINT LEO IV— A.D. 847
IEO IV, a Roman, was created pope in the year 847. He
was the son of Rodoald, or Rudolph, of an illustrious
m J family. At an early age he was a Benedictine monk,
not, as some writers have stated, in the monastery of
Saints Sylvester and Martin a' i Monti at Rome, but in the
monastery of Saint Martin which joined the ancient Basilica
Vaticana, in the place now occupied by the altar of Saint
Veronica.
Leo became cardinal-priest of the title of the Four Crowned
Saints, and owed that appointment to Pope Sergius II, or,
rather, to Gregory IV.
After the death of Sergius, Leo was immediately and
unanimously elected, the late pope not being as yet interred.
However, the n* w pontiff was not consecrated until the
nth of April. Thr Romans were at that time in dread of
LEO -IIII'PP - ROMANY^
SAINT LEO IV 95
an invasion of the Saracens from Sicily. The Gauls were
delivered from their yoke, but Italy was not yet freed from it.
Leo deposed from the cardinalate Anastasius, priest of
Saint Marcellus, because he had abandoned his parish during
five years. The same pope surrounded the Church of Saint
Peter with walls. All the nobles of Rome were sensibly
afflicted by the excesses committed there by the Saracen sol-
diery, and greatly dreaded their return. To reassure the
inhabitants, the pope determined to execute the design of
Leo III, to build a new town about Saint Peter's, the founda-
tions of which had already been commenced.
Leo IV wrote to the Emperor Lothaire upon the subject.
The prince was delighted with the proposal, exhorted the
pope to put the work in hand without delay, and sent, as the
contributions of all his brothers as well as of himself, a great
many pounds of silver. The pope, having received that gen-
erous reply of the emperor, assembled the Romans and con-
sulted them upon his project. It was resolved to bring in
from all the neighboring towns and lands all the workmen,
whether employed by the public or by the monasteries, and
set them to work in turn upon that great task. It occupied four
years, the pope continually superintending operations during
all the time left at his disposal by his spiritual duties, without
allowing cold, rain, or storm to divert him from his purpose.
Almost at the same time, that is to say, during the twelfth
indiction, which commenced that year (848), the pope also
labored to repair the walls of Rome, which had fallen into
ruin. He had the gates remade, and built fifteen towers
from the foundation to the roof, going sometimes on foot
and sometimes on horseback to encourage the workmen.
Among others, he constructed two towers near the Tiber, on
the gate which is on the road to Porto, now called the Porta
Portese, to stop the smaller barks of the infidels.
96 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Undeterred by those preparations, the Saracens made a
descent near Ostia. The pope repaired to that town; and
there, aided by the inhabitants of Gaeta, of Naples, and of
Amalfi, the Romans gained a signal victory over their
enemies.
Voltaire thus speaks of this historical fact :
"Being attacked by the Saracens, Pope Leo IV showed
himself, by his defence of Rome, worthy to rule there as a
sovereign. He had employed the wealth of the Church in re-
pairing the walls, building towers, and stretching chains
across the Tiber. He armed the militia at his own expense,
engaged the inhabitants of Gaeta and Naples to defend the
shores and the port of Ostia, but did not neglect the prudent
precaution of taking hostages from them, well knowing that
those who are powerful enough to aid us are also powerful
enough to injure us. He personally visited all the posts, and
met the Saracens on their descent, not in warlike array, like
Gozlin, Bishop of Paris, under circumstances still more ur-
gent, but as a pontiff exhorting a Christian people, and as a
king watching over the safety of his subjects. He was a Ro-
man ; in him the courage of the primitive ages of the republic
was revived, in a time of cowardice and corruption, like some
beautiful monument of ancient Rome that is sometimes
found amidst the ruins of the new Rome. The Saracens
were valorously met on their descent, and a tempest having
scattered half their vessels, a portion of the invaders, who
had escaped shipwreck, were captured and made to work in
chains. Thus the pope utilized his victory by employing
upon the defences and adornment of Rome the very hands
which were to have destroyed her."
Nothing was wanting to the glory of Leo. That noble
deed of arms, that second battle of Poitiers, if we may so
call it, that immortal service rendered to religion, has been
SAINT LEO IV 97
handed down to posterity by Raphael in the halls of the
Vatican.
At Poitiers, France as a whole was threatened and saved ;
but by the victory of Ostia it was the city of Rome that was
directly to be crushed or freed. In a few hours, had the
Saracens been victors at Ostia, Rome would have been theirs.
Voltaire has not exaggerated the praise of Leo, and in speak-
ing of him the imagination and the ability of the writer were
equal to the subject.
The new city built around Saint Peter's is still to this day
called the Leonine city; it is connected with Rome, and
actually inclosed in the same circuit.
In 852 the pope, prudent as became a man who had con-
quered barbarians, resolved to fortify the town of Porto, be-
cause the Saracens had concentrated considerable forces in
Sicily. Then there presented themselves a great number of
Corsicans, whom dread of the Saracens had driven from
Bastia and the neighborhood of Corte, and who were wan-
dering about without fixed abode. Having set forth their
misery, they promised that, if they should be received,
they and their children would remain in the service of the
pope, who, on his part, offered them the city of Porto, well
fortified, and provided with vineyards, meadows, arable land,
horses, and cattle. The Corsicans, a brave people, loving
war, and highly esteeming the pope, who had shown himself
as brave as themselves, accepted Leo's offer, and a deed of
gift of the lands was delivered in due form to those who
hastened to sign the treaty.
Leo IV had, in 850, crowned Louis II as emperor, or
rather as associate in the empire, and he lived constantly in
good understanding with him, as well as with Lothaire, the
still living father of Louis.
Towards the end of the year 853, Leo IV held at Rome, in
98 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
the Church of St. Peter, a council of sixty-seven bishops,
amongst whom were four sent by the Emperor Lothaire.
The council assembled on the 8th of September, second in-
diction, seventh year of the reign of Leo, thirty-seventh of
the reign of Lothaire, and the fifth of the reign of Louis II.
It was in that council that Anastasius was deposed, as men-
tioned earlier in this account. The inhabitants of Centum
Cellae, a flourishing town in the days of Trajan, were exposed
to attacks by the Saracens, and quitted the city. Leo built,
at a short distance, a new city, but in the course of time it
was deserted, and the inhabitants returned to the old Centum
Cellae, to which they gave the name of Civita Vecchia (the
old city), which it still bears.
Leo was the first who began to reckon the years of his
pontificate. Leo IV governed the Church eight years, three
months, and six days. In two ordinations he created sixty-
three bishops, nineteen priests, and eight deacons.
This pope was very learned; he united the rarest virtues,
circumspection, munificence, piety, humanity, courage, and
love of justice ; he was beneficent to the poor, and fulfilled the
duties of the pontifical ministry with the most exemplary
exactitude. Leo died on the 17th of July, 855, and was in-
terred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant one
month and twelve days, until the consecration of Bene-
dict III.
All that is related concerning this reign fully proves how
powerful Leo was at Rome. Fleury, however, seems to
doubt the authenticity of such a sovereignty. He says:
"Daniel, master of the militia, went from Rome to Pavia to
obtain an interview with Louis," and said to him : "Gratian,
governor of the palace of Rome, whom you believe to be
faithful to you, said to me in his own house : 'These French
do us no good and give us no assistance; on the contrary,
SAINT LEO IV 99
they pillage us. Why do we not call in the Greeks, and
make a treaty with them, and drive away the French king
and nation?' "
The emperor was so irritated on hearing this that he
hastily marched upon Rome without writing to the pope or
the senate. The pope, however, received him, in the usual
honorable manner, upon the great steps of the Church of
St. Peter, and spoke to him with mildness to appease him.
A day was appointed for Gratian's trial ; and the emperor,
accompanied by the pope and the Roman and French nobles,
held his court in the palace erected by Leo III, near St. Peter's.
Daniel repeated his accusation in Gratian's presence, that he
sought to persuade him to deliver Rome to the Greeks; but
Gratian and the Romans contradicted him. The emperor
ordered them to be tried by the Roman law, and Daniel was
convicted of calumny. He was delivered to Gratian to abide
his will, but at the request of the emperor was released.
This story shows who was sovereign at Rome.
This story, except the concluding reflection by Fleury
himself, is drawn from the Lives of the Popes, by Anasta-
sius, Librarian of the Roman Church, the same who aided
the pope's legates at the Council of Constantinople, in 869,
and who wrote nothing unjust to Rome, or unfavorable to its
dignity. But Fleury, who was subsequently obliged to ac-
knowledge the pontifical sovereignty, and who will give,
though with an ill grace, the firm and energetic letters of
Nicholas I, pope in 858, three years after Leo IV, and imme-
diately after his successor, Benedict III — Fleury takes a
malignant pleasure in representing the Western emperors as
absolute masters of Rome, as several Eastern emperors had
been before Charlemagne. This is not good sound history
on Fleury's part. Read these pages before the great Saint
Leo; read the events of his reign; go on to Saint Gregory the
ioo LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Great ; and if you are not convinced, take up some pages on
the pontificate of Saint Leo IV himself, and see whether such
sophistry should find place in a narrative which should be
written only with the spirit of the most exact truth and
soundest criticism. Certainly after Charlemagne a mixed
element is discoverable in examining this question, but
Charlemagne almost always considered himself as a sort of
legate a latere of the pope, and defends religion as though
pope himself. Louis the Debonair did not contend with the
popes. Lothaire, in the policy entailed by his revolt against
his father, courted Gregory IV rather than endeavored to
humiliate him. Lothaire, subsequently recognized as lawful
emperor, did not ill-treat Sergius ; and certainly Leo IV, the
conqueror of the Saracens, did not yield any rights to Louis
II, whom he had first crowned king of the Lombards, at the
earnest solicitation of Lothaire, and whom he subsequently
crowned as emperor, or associate in the empire, about the
time when the Greeks avowed their evil designs; for Gra-
tian was, perhaps, less guiltless than Anastasius says; and
Daniel, master of the militia, who, after all, was not pun-
ished, although convicted of calumny, may have told the
truth. The Iconoclasts wished to satisfy the Moslem at any
price, and in the popes the Greeks found one of the great
obstacles to their perfidious project.
BENEDICT III 101
106
BENEDICT III— A.D. 855
IT is between the reign of Saint Leo IV and that of
Benedict III that the pretended reign of the female
Pope Joan has been placed. This fable was invented
about the year 1278, and is founded upon a supposititious
assertion of Martin Polonius and Marianus Scotus, in the
margin of whose works this fable was inserted by somebody
or other, as is demonstrated by David Blondel.
Authors give various names to the female pope ; some call
her Agnes, others Angelica; these call her Margaret, those
Dorothy. If they differ as to the name of their imaginary
popess, they differ no less as to her nativity. She is English,
a German, of Mainz. She had, say they, successfully culti-
vated belles-lettres. Disguised as a man, she went to Athens,
thence to Jerusalem, and finally to Rome. There her talents
and learning procured her admirers, and raised her to the
pontificate, which she held for two years, five months, and
four days. The absurdity should be indignantly rejected.
Benedict III, a Roman, son of Peter, a canon regular, then
made cardinal of Saint Calixtus by Leo IV, was elected pope,
against his own desire, on the 17th of July, and consecrated
on the 29th of September, 855, after the imperial ambassa-
dors, whose duty it was to be present at the consecration,
had desisted from an endeavor to favor an antipope named
Anastasius, because they perceived how warmly the clergy
were in favor of Benedict.
In 857 he conceded, in perpetuity, Terni to the inhabitants
of that town, on condition that they should restore the houses
that had been ruined by the dukes of Spoleto.
102 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
He ordered that on the death of a bishop, a priest, or a
deacon, the pontiff, with all the bishops, priests, deacons, and
clergy, should be present at the funeral, and that the same
rule should be observed on the death of a pope. He thus re-
stored the old custom of the Church, which ordained that at
the death of a bishop all the other bishops of the province
should carry him to the grave.
He governed the Church two years, six months, and about
ten days, counting the day of his consecration and not that
of his election.
In one ordination he created twenty bishops, six priests,
and one deacon. He was a pontiff of great piety, full of ten-
derness and charity, visiting the sick, and accessible to the
poor, whom he saluted as nobles in Jesus Christ. He never
refused his protection to a widow or an orphan ; and he had
the pleasure to find his virtues praised even by his enemies.
This pope died on the 8th of April, 858, and was interred at
the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant fifteen days.
Mention has been made of the antipope Anastasius. Some
persons, supported by the ambassadors of Lothaire, sought
to elect Anastasius, from whom Saint Leo IV had withdrawn
the title of cardinal of Saint Marcellus. Anastasius persisted
in his resistance two months and some days, and even went
so far as to depose Benedict. At length, having, in the
Basilica of Saint John Lateran and in that of the Vatican,
been guilty of excesses which, Novaes says, would have
shocked a Saracen, he fled from Rome in the year 867, as
Baronius states. But he returned with genuine feelings of
repentance, and was received into the communion of the
Church by Saint Nicholas I. Unhappily this man, destitute
alike of firmness and of good faith, always ready to fall,
committed new offences, and Adrian II cut him off from the
Catholic communion in 868.
ft 1
NlCOLAV^-I*PP*ROMANVvy
SAINT NICHOLAS I 103
107
SAINT NICHOLAS I— A.D. 858
SAINT NICHOLAS I, surnamed the Great, deserved
the title by his virtues, comparable to those of Saint
Gregory and Saint Leo. He was a Roman, and son
of Theodore of the Conti family. He was made cardinal-
deacon by Leo IV. Notwithstanding the resistance which
he manifested, he was elected and consecrated pope on the
24th of April, 858, in presence of Louis II, who held the new
pope's stirrup as he mounted his horse to go to take the
possesso. He was the first pope crowned with the papal
tiara. The coronation took place at Saint John Lateran, but
the custom had prevailed that the pope should be crowned at
Saint Peter's, and that he should go to Saint John Lateran
to take possesso. A few days after those ceremonies, Louis
II left Rome for a neighboring place called Tor di Quinto.
The pope, accompanied by all the Roman nobles, paid a visit
to the prince at that place. On the arrival of the pontiff,
Louis dismounted from his own horse, took the pope's bridle,
and conducted His Holiness to Tor di Quinto, where a mag-
nificent banquet was prepared. The same honors were paid
by Louis II to Nicholas when he returned to Rome.
The pope at this time commenced that series of great
achievements by which his name and pontificate were made
illustrious.
With admirable constancy he defended Ignatius, Patriarch
of Constantinople, whom Bardanes, uncle of the Emperor
Michael, and governing in his name, had deposed on a charge
of high treason. Bardanes had named, in place of the de-
104 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
posed Ignatius, the eunuch Photius, a man of corrupt morals,
whom Nicholas deemed it his duty to excommunicate in a
council in the year 863.
In 866 Nicholas required of Lothaire that he should take
back his wife, Queen Tielberge, and dismiss his concubine
Waldrade. But subsequently Lothaire took back the con-
cubine, abandoning and ill-treating his lawful wife. In one
of the seven councils which he celebrated at Rome, Nicholas
extinguished the reviving sect of the Theopaschites. He
says himself in the seventh of his letters, published by Labbe,
that they maintained that Jesus Christ, on the cross, suffered
in his divinity.
The Bulgarians were converted in 861. Nicholas sent to
them, in 866, his legates, among whom was distinguished
Formosus, Bishop of Porto, who became pope in 891. For
their instruction he gave them one hundred and six replies
to as many questions asked by Michael, king of the Bulga-
rians.
On the subject of the divorce of Lothaire, Fleury notices a
letter which Nicholas wrote to Adventius, Bishop of Mainz,
in which the pope seems to authorize bishops to disobey
princes whom they do not consider legitimate.
"You say that you are subject to the prince because the
apostle says : 'Obey the king, as being set over you.' You are
right; but be sure that these kings and princes are genuine.
See whether they act uprightly, govern their subjects well,
for what is he good for who is bad in himself? See whether
they are princes justly ; otherwise we must rather hold them
as tyrants than kings, and resist, rather than by obeying
them place ourselves under the necessity of favoring their
vices. Be subject to the king as being above all by his vir-
tues, not by his vices, and obey him for God's sake, as the
apostle says, and not against God."
SAINT NICHOLAS I 105
Fleury adds: "Pope Nicholas forgot that the king, or
rather emperor, whom Saint Peter ordered Christians to
obey, was Nero; and that he says immediately after, 'Slaves,
obey your masters, not only those who are good, but the fro-
ward also/ Moreover, the pope makes bishops judges
whether princes are legitimate or tyrants; and not only
bishops but all their subjects, for the reason he cites in gen-
eral." Fleury frequently censures Nicholas.
Nicholas governed the Church nine years, six months, and
twenty days.
In various ordinations he created sixty-five bishops, seven
priests, and four deacons. The eighth general council, as-
sembled in Constantinople in 870, calls Nicholas the new
Elias, the new Phineas (Phineas, son of Eleazar and grand-
son of Aaron, was the third high priest of the Jews), new
Daniel, and new Martin. Anastasius, in the preface to that
same council, calls Nicholas a "heavenly man" and an
"earthly angel." He showed great munificence in the
restoration of the churches of Rome. All authors agree that
he was enthusiastically beloved by the poor, because he had
said that there should not be one of them in Rome that had
not shared in his bounty. Nicholas was also respected on
account of the just severity with which he enforced ecclesias-
tical discipline. He died on the 13th of November, 867, and
was interred before the doors of Saint Peter.
The Holy See remained vacant one month.
io6 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
108
ADRIAN II— A.D. 867
A DRIAN II, a Roman, son of Talarus, and a bishop, was
/\ a relation of Stephen IV and of Sergius II. He
Jl. JL owed his rank of cardinal-priest of Saint Mark to
Gregory IV. Adrian twice refused the pontificate, after the
death of Leo IV and after that of Benedict III.
Some authors maintain that before he became a cardinal
he was married. Novaes does not deny that fact, which was
very common in the times of which we spedk. The wife of
the son of Talarus was named Stephanie, and they had one
daughter. Muratori states the same fact in his Annals.
When Adrian II was elected pope, he was above seventy-
six years old. He was consecrated on the 14th of December,
867 ; and even while the ceremony was in progress, he made
a third attempt to refuse the pontificate. Adrian, in his rule,
so carefully followed in the path of his predecessor that with
ill-timed derision he was called Nicholas the Little; but he
persisted in following the noble examples given by his prede-
cessor. He pronounced a second sentence of excommunica-
tion against Anastasius, cardinal of Saint Marcellus, who
had been deposed by Leo IV. Anastasius, when restored
to communion, had forgotten that favor. He abstracted
synodal writings and committed other offences, and no doubt
deserved the sentence of excommunication which was pro-
nounced against him by a council assembled at Rome in 868.
In another council assembled at Rome, Adrian, urged by
his apostolic zeal, issued a third excommunication against
Photius. On this subject, and in order to restore agreement
HADRIANVv? -II^PP-FOMANVv?
ADRIAN II 107
with the various Eastern churches, he convoked the fourth
Council of Constantinople, which was the eighth general
council. There a hundred and nine bishops signed the con-
demnation of Photius with a pen dipped in the chalice. The
twenty-seventh canon of that council ordered that monks
and religious when made bishops should visibly wear the
habit of their order.
Adrian absolved Lothaire from his excommunication, and
urged him to leave his concubine Waldrade, and take back
his lawful wife Tielberge, to whom he was bound to pay all
royal honors.
This pope ordered Charles the Bald, on pain of excommu-
nication, to restore the kingdom usurped from his brother,
the Emperor Louis II, whose birthright it was. He crowned
Alfred I, sixth King of England, and granted to the Mora-
vians the right to use Slavonic, their vernacular language,
in the divine offices and in the Mass. Pope John VIII
confirmed that right, on condition that they should first re-
cite the Gospel in Latin and then in Slavonic. Langlet, in
his Chronological Tables, thinks that it was at this period
that the cross began to be borne before the pope.
Adrian II governed the Church four years, eleven months,
and twelve days. He died on the 26th of November, 872, and
was buried at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant
twenty-six days.
108 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
109
JOHN VIII— A.D. 872
JOHN VIII, a Roman, son of Guido, and cardinal-arch-
deacon, was elected and consecrated pope on the 14th
of December, 872. He was the first to publish rules on
the rights and pre-eminences of the cardinals.
In 875 he crowned the Emperor Charles the Bald as King
of France, and accompanied him to Pavia, where he held
a council, which confirmed the election of the Emperor
Charles.
In 876 he excommunicated Formosus, Bishop of Porto
(who, in the year 891, succeeded him in the pontificate), be-
cause that bishop had left his church without the permission
of the pope, and was, moreover, accused of conspiring
against the weal of the empire and of Christendom. Mabil-
lon gives us, on this subject, details which are founded upon
John's own letter. Subsequently the pope exiled Formosus
to France, making him swear that he would not return to
Rome, or even to Porto. The Saracens, who had infested
the kingdom of Naples, had approached Rome. John solic-
ited the aid of Charles the Bald.
John, however, was attacked in the States of the Church
by the Saracens, and, unable to rely upon the aid of Charles
and the other princes, was obliged to purchase peace from
the barbarians by the promise of an annual tribute of twenty-
five thousand silver marks; and at the same time he found
himself obliged to leave his capital to avoid the plots of some
Roman nobles, his enemies, and he took shelter in France.
On Whitsunday, the nth of May, 878, he stopped in the city
JOHN VIII 109
of Aries ; thence he proceeded to Lyons, from which city he
wrote to various prelates, and among them to Hincmar,
Archbishop of Rheims, whose great merits he knew.
John assembled a council at Troyes. In the third session
all the bishops present agreed upon the following address to
the pope :
"Lord and Most Holy Father, we, the bishops of Gaul and
Belgium, your servants and your disciples, compassionate the
miseries which the ministers of the devil have inflicted upon
our Holy Mother, the Mistress of all the Churches, and we
unanimously follow the sentence which, according to the
canons, you have pronounced upon those enemies in causing
them to die by the sword of the Spirit. We hold as excom-
municated all whom you have excommunicated, as anathe-
matized those whom you have anathematized, and we will
receive those who shall be received by you, after they shall
have made satisfaction according to the rules; but we have
all, in these churches, the same evils to deplore. Wherefore,
in all humility, we supplicate you to aid us and prescribe how
we shall act against those who rob our churches, so that, be-
ing supported by your authority, we and our successors may
be the stronger to resist and punish them."
John returned to Rome with Count Boson, whom he had
chosen as the defender of the States of the Church against
Lambert, Duke of Spoleto.
The pontiff, on his return to the capital, was waited upon
by ambassadors from Basil, Emperor of the East. That
prince, deceived by Photius, had replaced him in the see of
Constantinople, and now begged the pope to confirm his
acts. The emperor urged that not only the partisans of
Photius, but those of the party of Ignatius and Methodius,
had consented to this restoration. John, deceived by such
reports, without inquiry, was unwise enough to write,
no LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
through Cardinal Peter, his legate, to the emperor, the patri-
archs of the East, and all who had refused to communicate
with Photius, and declared him re-established in that see.
John believed the sacrifice to be necessary to the peace of the
Church; nevertheless he made it on condition that Photius,
in the presence of the legates, should ask pardon for his
conduct towards the Roman Church. Photius, who was full
of trickery and imposture, readily consented.
This compliance on the part of the pope surprised all the
orthodox, and caused Cardinal Baronius to say that at that
time the Church was governed by a woman.
Baronius somewhat exaggerates the mischief done to the
Holy See by John in restoring Photius ; and De Marca, ac-
cording to Novaes, is perhaps overzealous in his endeavor
to justify the pontiff on that point. John, perceiving that he
had made a false step in re-establishing Photius and thus
restoring to the communion the usurper of a seat of which
he had been deprived by an oecumenical council, soon can-
celled the acts of the conciliabule presided over by Photius
in person, and severely punished the legates of the Holy See
who had suffered themselves to be deceived by the frauds of
that disobedient prelate. Photius was again condemned,
and John sent Marius, a cardinal-deacon, to Constantinople
to cause the pontifical will to be executed.
At the solicitation of Alphonso III, King of Leon, John
erected the Church of Oviedo into the metropolitan Church
of Galicia.
In four years John is said to have crowned as emperors
three kings of France: Charles the Bald, in 876; Louis III, in
878 ; and Charles the Fat, in 880.
The same pontiff gave to the Duke of Gaeta, to John his
son, and to their successors, the patrimony of Traetto and
the town of Fondi, previously the absolute property of
MARTINVtf -II-PP * ROMANVvf
MARINUS I in
the Holy See, on condition that those princes should declare
war against the Saracens, which they courageously did.
Feller says that we have three hundred and twenty-six of
this pope's letters. The Biographie Universelle states that
it was by order of this pontiff that John, a deacon of the
Roman Church, wrote, in four volumes, the Life of Gregory
the Great, who lived three centuries earlier.
John governed ten years and two days ; he died on the 1 5th
of December, 882, just as he was about to set out for France
for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation among the
French princes. He was interred under the portico of the
Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant seven days.
110
MARINUS I— A.D. 882
THE next pope, Marinus I, son of Palombo, was born
at Montefiascone, a town in the States of the
Church, near Viterbo. He had three times been
legate to Constantinople in the case of Photius — under
Nicholas I, in 866, under Adrian II, in 868, and under
John VIII, in 881.
He was elected pope on the 23d of December, 882. He im-
mediately excommunicated Photius, and restored Formosus
to his see of Porto, and also permitted him to go to Rome.
Under Pope Marinus lived the great King of England,
Alfred. Named King of Demetia by his father, he was
crowned at Rome by Pope Leo IV, and subsequently recog-
nized as King of Wessex. He is considered the first leg-
islator of his nation. Those among his laws which relate
ii2 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
to religion were made by him in concert with the see of
Rome.
Perjury was punished by forty days' imprisonment, to
fulfil the penance imposed by the bishop. Right of sanctuary
was given to the churches. Larceny committed in a church
or on a Sunday was punished more severely than if com-
mitted elsewhere and on any other day. Nuns were pro-
tected against insults of men, which seems to infer that they
were not cloistered. It was forbidden to draw a sword in
the presence of a bishop.
A deposit made to a monk without the permission of the
abbot was void, and the loss fell on the depositor.
Pope Marinus, at the request of King Alfred of England,
sent him a piece of the true cross. This pontiff governed
one year, four months, and a few days. He died on the 24th
of February, 884, with the reputation of being a man of en-
lightenment and great piety. We must presume that For-
mosus, whom this pope pardoned, had given clear proofs of
his repentance.
Marinus was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See re-
mained vacant six days.
Ill
ADRIAN III— A.D. 884
A DRIAN III, whom many authors call Agapetus, was a
ZJL Roman, son of Benedict. He was elected pontiff on
JL JL the 1 st of March, 884.
He would never yield to Basilius, the Macedonian, who
wished him to revoke the excommunication against Photius,
the perpetual torment of the Church. Adrian governed one
HADRIANVtf -III * PP -ROMAJWv?
»
v^TEPHANVvS'-VI^ PP-ROMANVvS'
STEPHEN VI 113
year, four months, and eight days. He was invited to France
by Charles the Fat. The firmness and wisdom of this pope
were much relied on to terminate the differences which dis-
turbed that monarchy, but he died on his way at Saint
Cesarius, a small town near Modena, on the 8th of July, 885.
He was buried in the monastery of Nonantola, five miles
from Modena.
The Holy See remained vacant six days.
112
STEPHEN VI— A.D. 885
STEPHEN VI, who is believed to have belonged to the
house of Colonna, was cardinal-priest, and unani-
mously elected pope on the 15th of July, 885. So
great was his resistance to the promotion that he ordered the
doors of his house to be closed, and it was necessary to break
them down in order to seize him (as was done with Gregory
the Great) and lead him to the church. Stephen was
crowned, without the presence of the imperial ambassadors,
at the close of the month of September of the same year^
which would confirm the existence of a decree of Adrian III,
his predecessor, providing that the pope-elect should be con-
secrated without requiring the presence of the king or his
ambassadors.
With the aid of the Emperor Leo VI, called the Philoso-
pher, Stephen extinguished the schism of Photius; that
heresiarch was confined in a monastery, where he died. This
schism did not revive until the time of Michael Cerularius,
ii4 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
who, by favor of Constantine Monomachus, was placed in
the see of Constantinople in 1043.
In 891 Stephen crowned as emperor Guido, Duke of Spo-
leto, his adopted son, who out of gratitude confirmed the
gifts made to the Roman Church by Pepin and by the Em-
peror Charlemagne and Louis the Pious; and thus, after
many vicissitudes, the Italian empire fell again into the
hands of an Italian prince.
It is affirmed that it was Stephen who, in a letter addressed
to Humbert, Bishop of Mainz, prohibited the ordeal of a hot
iron or boiling water, by which the accused was deemed
innocent if he touched the iron or water without being in-
jured. But many writers, and among them Van Espen, do
not recognize the decree.
Stephen governed six years. He distinguished himself by
his knowledge, and by his charity to the poor.
"This pope," says Feller, "was of noble race and of exem-
plary disinterestedness. To the utmost of his power, he op-
posed his own elevation. He nourished orphans as though
they had been his own children, and often admitted them to
his table. On his attaining to the pontificate, the funds of
the Church being almost all dissipated, he liberally distrib-
uted his rich patrimony. He celebrated Mass daily, and gave
to prayer or psalmody such time as he could spare from the
duties of charity and pastoral watchfulness. He above all
things was anxious to associate with himself in the govern-
ment of the Church the most enlightened and the most
virtuous men whom he could discover." He died on the
7th of August, or, as some say, towards the end of Septem-
ber, 891, and was interred in the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant one month and eleven days.
FORJMO^V^ -I- PP- CORSICA
FORMOSUS 115
113
FORMOSUS— A.D. 891
FORMOSUS, son of Leo, was a native of Corsica,
canon regular, and afterwards Bishop of Porto. He
was the first bishop who became pope. He was
elected pontiff about the 21st of September, and consecrated
towards the end of that month.
John VIII had condemned Formosus, deposed him from
his see, exiled him, and forbidden him to return to his church
or to Rome, and had made him promise to content himself
with lay communion.
Marinus I, as we have seen, released the exile from his
oaths and restored him to his see. Adrian III and Stephen
VI distinguished and honored Formosus. Monsignor Bec-
chetti, in stating that fact in his Ecclesiastical History, adds
that, owing to the obscurity of the ancient documents, it would
be difficult to prove the innocence of Formosus. Neverthe-
less, Cardella, in his History of the Cardinals, mentions that,
even amidst that dense darkness, Father Nardi has found
abundant light to clear Formosus from all the offences that
have been imputed to him; and he maintains that time has
openly proved the innocence of this cardinal, who subse-
quently became pontiff. Novaes does not hesitate to say that
John VIII, who restored Photius to the see of Constanti-
nople, may also have given too easy credence to calumnies
against Formosus; and at the same time that historian as-
serts that the contemporaries of Formosus eulogized him as
a man of great virtue.
The Emperor Leo having written to Stephen VI that Pho-
n6 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
tius of his own free will had resigned his bishopric, and the
bishops of the East having written to the contrary, begging
the pope to receive into the communion of the Church those
who had been ordained by that heresiarch, Formosus re-
ceived the letters, Stephen having died ere they reached
Rome. Formosus showed himself favorable to the prayer
of the bishops, but with the condition that those v/ho had
been ordained by Photius should present a libellus contain-
ing a written confession of their fault and asking pardon
for it.
The Emperor Guido being dead, the affairs of Italy were
again disturbed by violence. The Holy Father secretly
called to Rome the King of Germany, Arnulphus, to repress
a party that had risen against the pope, headed by Lambert,
a son of Guido. Arnulphus was crowned emperor in 895,
after having taken Rome, by permission of Formosus, and
driven out the enemies of that pope. In the oath that the
Romans took to Arnulphus, the pope caused the words, "sav-
ing the faith due to Formosus," to be inserted.
A letter of the Archbishop of Rheims, Foulques, having in-
formed the Holy Father of the coronation of Charles the
Simple as King of France, His Holiness wrote to King Eudes,
begging him not to attack Charles in either his person or
possessions, but to grant him a truce; and he also wrote to
the bishops, exhorting them to make the same request to
King Eudes. He also sent Charles advice suited to his posi-
tion. Formosus governed the Church nearly five years. He
died on the 4th of April, 896, and was interred at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant six days.
/*
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s^TEPHANV^ -VH*PP*ROMANVv?
BONIFACE VI 117
114
BONIFACE VI— A.D. 896
BONIFACE VI is reckoned among the popes of that
name; nevertheless, the official Diario of Rome says
that many writers consider him an antipope. After
the death of Formosus, a mob placed Boniface in the chair
of Saint Peter, on the nth of April, 896. Little regularity
was observed in his election, and he allowed himself to be
appointed by unqualified electors. John VIII had con-
demned him and deprived him of the dignity of subdeacon.
He held the pontificate only fifteen days, and died of an
attack of gout, on the 26th of April, 896. He was interred at
the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant five days.
115
STEPHEN VII— A.D. 896
STEPHEN VII, a Roman, made Bishop of Anagni by
Stephen VI, was elected pontiff by the seditious exer-
' tions of Adalbert, Marquis of Tuscany, on the 226. of
May, 896, and consecrated about the 20th of August.
According to Baronius, he was the first who covered with
mourning the chair of Saint Peter. Stephen, ignorant of the
sacred doctrines, and unable to consult the clergy, who had
taken no part in his election, violated the grave of a sover-
eign pontiff, causing the body of Formosus, who had been
n8 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
buried at the Vatican, to be taken up, clothed in the papal
ornaments, and placed on the pontifical throne, where he
thus outrageously addressed the corpse: "You were Bishop
of Porto; and how, man full of ambition, did you dare to
usurp the universal Roman throne?" Having said that, he
had the body stripped of the sacred garb, had the three
fingers cut off with which the living pope had been accus-
tomed to give the papal benediction, and then had the body
thrown into the Tiber. Afterwards, having deposed all
those who had been ordained by Formosus, Stephen ren-
dered himself universally odious by such revengeful conduct.
The friends of Formosus excited the citizens, who loaded
Stephen with irons and strangled him in prison.
Some time after (in 898), John IX assembled at Rome a
council, which condemned all that had been done in 897
against the memory and the body of Formosus. The Fathers
of the council declared that Formosus had been removed by
necessity from the see of Porto to that of Rome. "There
was necessity," said they, "for transferring Formosus from
the Church of Porto to the Holy See. Formosus was dis-
tinguished for the merits of his life."
"The conduct of Stephen," says Baronius, "must be at-
tributed to a violent tyranny in fact, and not to error in
faith : let us not forget that we are treating of the ninth cen-
tury." Stephen governed the Church one year and two
months. He was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See re-
mained vacant three days.
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ROM ANUS 119
116
ROMANUS— A.D. 897
ROMANUS, of Montefiascone, or rather of Gallese,
an estate near Civita Castellana, was the son of Con-
^ stantine, the father also of Pope Marinus. He was
elected pontiff on the 17th of September, 897. Sigonius,
Platina, Panvini, and Chacon state that this pope abrogated
all that Stephen had done against Formosus, whose friend
Romanus had been. But the contemporary writers make no
mention of this abrogation, which seems to have been re-
served for Theodore II, successor of Romanus.
This pope died on the 8th of February, 898, after govern-
ing the Church about four months, and was interred at the
Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant three days.
117
THEODORE II— A.D. 898
THEODORE II, Roman, son of Photius, a noble, was
elected pontiff on the 12th of February, 898. He an-
nulled the sentence pronounced by Stephen VII
against those ordained by Formosus. He entombed with
pomp, in Saint Peter's, the body of that pope, which some
fishermen had recovered from the Tiber. Legends recount
that when the body appeared at the entrance of the church
all the images bowed in salutation.
120 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Theodore II governed only twenty days. He deserves
praise for having punished the insult offered to Formosus.
Flodoard lauds the piety, courage, and charity of Theodore.
He died on the 3d of March, 898, and was interred at the
Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant eight days.
118
JOHN IX—A.D. 898
JOHN IX, of Tivoli, son of Rampoald, first a Benedictine
monk, then cardinal-deacon, was elected pope on the
2 2d of March, 898, and consecrated at the end of Au-
gust. He formally abrogated the acts against Formo-
sus. Nevertheless, he ordered, in two councils, assembled at
Rome and Ravenna, that no bishop should pass from his own
church to that of Rome — a law annulled in 914.
In the Council of Ravenna, John required all to swear
obedience to the Capitularies of Charlemagne. After hav-
ing nobly restored the memory of Formosus, he excommuni-
cated those who had violated the tomb in order to take out
the body of that pope. He ratified the coronation of the
Emperor Lambert, and annulled the election of Berengarius.
This pontiff forbade the houses of bishops to be pillaged at
their death, and he ordained, for the prevention of disturb-
ances arising out of the coronation of the popes, that the
ceremony should take place in presence of the imperial am-
bassadors. The presence of those ministers was often ap-
parently invoked : they were summoned if a riot was feared ;
but if the people were peaceable they were not invited. John
BE
BENEDICT^ IIII *PP *ROMANW
BENEDICT IV 121
IX governed two years and fifteen days. He died on the
26th of March, or at the commencement of August, in the
year 900.
He was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained
vacant ten days.
119
BENEDICT IV— A.D. goo
BENEDICT IV, a Roman, canon regular of Saint John
Lateran, son of Mammolus, and said to be of the fa-
mous Conti family, was elected on the 6th of April,
A.D. 900. In the month of August he crowned, as emperor,
Louis, King of Burgundy. Benedict governed three years
and two months. He was affable, liberal to the poor, and of
virtues rare in those unhappy times.
At this time the Church beheld coming to its bosom Harold,
King of Denmark, with his whole kingdom ; Dukes Liberius
of Muscovy, Micislaus of Poland, Waldemar of Prussia, and
Spetineus of Bohemia, as well as their vassals. Then Hun-
gary was converted by Saint Stephen, and Russia by Saint
Boniface, and all united with the Church. In an age when
the pontiffs were not irreproachable, the councils of Chalons,
in 915, Troyes, in 921 and 927, and Rheims, in 995, recog-
nized and venerated in the heads residing at Rome the su-
preme authority and the high and indestructible pontifical
sovereignty.
Fleury says of Benedict : "He was a great pope."
He acted prudently in the case of Argrim, Bishop of
Langres, whom the Emperor Guy had driven from that city.
The pope, not choosing to decide without the bishops, con-
122 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
vened a council in the Lateran Palace, where it was decided
that Argrim should be maintained in the see of Langres. The
Emperor Lambert was dead, and Benedict, not deeming it
right to recognize Berengarius, held the empire to be vacant ;
but shortly after, Louis, son of Boson, King of Provence,
was called into Italy and recognized as emperor.
Under this reign died Alfred the Great, King of England.
He profited by all the leisure his public duties allowed him,
to read, interrogate educated men, and thus to learn what-
ever might improve himself or those with whom he con-
versed. He left many writings, six of which were his own
compositions. Among them were a collection of the laws of
various nations, the laws of the West Saxons, a treatise
against evil judges, maxims of wise men, parables, and dis-
sertations on the various fortunes of kings. The English
ascribe to Alfred trial by jury in criminal cases.
Benedict died on the 20th of October, 903. He was in-
terred at the Vatican.
The Holy See remained vacant seven days.
120
LEO V— A.D. 903
IEO V was born at Priapi, near Ardea, in the Roman
Campagna, or, according to other authors, at Arezzo ;
wmJ he was certainly not a Tuscan. A simple Benedictine
in the abbey of Brandallo, then cardinal, he was elected pope
on the 28th of October, 903. A few days afterwards, Chris-
topher, cardinal-priest of Saint Laurence in Damaso, who
owed all to the new pope, seeing him destitute of executive
CHRISTOPHER 123
ability and incapable of upholding his authority, threw him
into prison, compelled him to renounce the pontificate, and
made him promise that he would return to his monastery.
Sigonius affirms that time was not allowed him to resume
the monastic life, and that he died in prison, in one month
and nine days. He was interred at Saint John Lateran.
121
CHRISTOPHER— A. D. 903
CHRISTOPHER, a Roman, cardinal-priest of Saint
Laurence in Damaso, set up his pretensions against
Leo V and threw him into prison. But, though he
thus grasped the pontifical authority, he is not reckoned
among the antipopes. Six months after his usurpation he
was imprisoned by Sergius, who sent him to a monastery,
where he perished miserably in June, 904. He was buried at
the Vatican. This is one of the deplorable scenes which dis-
graced the tenth century. Happily, it can be said that
shortly before the Iconoclasts had been repressed by Theo-
dora, widow of Theophilus. The arts, so friendly to Chris-
tian government, were cultivated both in the East and in the
West ; sculptors in bronze, especially, now acquired renown
at Constantinople.
i24 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
122
SERGIUS III— A.D. 904
SERGIUS, a Roman, cardinal-priest, son of Benedict,
of the Conti family, aspired to the papacy on the
death of Theodore II. Defeated by a faction, he
passecl seven years at Florence, in exile. Recalled subse-
quently by the party of Adalbert, Marquis of Tuscany, he
was invited by the Roman people, who hated Christopher,
to present himself again for election. He was consecrated
on the gth of June, 904. Sergius entertained feelings hostile
to Formosus, and he annulled the acts by which Theodore II
and John IX had restored the memory of that pope.
This pope repaired and embellished the Church of Saint
John Lateran, that had been damaged by an earthquake in
the reign of Stephen VII.
The errors of Photius still had partisans in the East.
Sergius redoubled his efforts to diminish the influence of the
adherents of such maxims. He governed seven years and
three months, and died towards the end of August, 911, after
a pontificate of which Baronius says that it had "un cattivo
ingresso, un peggiore progresso, ed un pessime egresso" —
bad ingress, worse progress, an egress worst of all.
According to many authors, Sergius was interred at the
Vatican; but, according to Rasponi, he was buried in .the
Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
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ANASTASIUS III 125
123
ANASTASIUS III— A.D. 911
A NASTASIUS III, a Roman, son of Lucian, was elected
/ \ pope a day or two after the death of Sergius III, in
-X JL 911. At the request of Berengarius, King of Italy,
he granted various privileges to the Bishop of Pavia — the
right to ride a white horse, to have the cross carried in pro-
cession before him on his journeys, and to sit at the left hand
of the pope in the councils. Cardinal Baronius cites yet an-
other privilege. Whenever the Bishop of Pavia called to a
synod the archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, with their
suffragans, they were bound to attend at once. Novaes says
that it was on account of these singular privileges that Bene-
dict XIV, in 1743, created the bishops of Pavia perpetual
archbishops of Amasia. This concession restored order into
the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Anastasius is praised for the gentleness of his government,
which lasted only two years and two months.
He died in October, and was interred at the Vatican.
124
LANDO— A.D. 913
1ANDO, son of Trano, born at Monterotondo, an ancient
Roman colony, was a canon regular. He was elected
-J pontiff on the 16th of October, 913, governed six
months and ten days, died the 26th of April, 914, and was
interred at the Vatican.
126 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
As he feared the vengeance of a celebrated and powerful
Roman lady, Theodora, who was no less vicious than her
two daughters, Theodora and Marozia, Lando transferred
John from the Church of Bologna, where he was elected, to
that of Ravenna. That same John, under the name of John
X, was Lando's successor.
Chacon says that the life of this pontiff was very obscure,
partly on account of the shortness of his pontificate, partly
from the scarcity of writers who give the annals of these
times. Lando, faithful to the sentiments of conciliation
which have always animated the popes, interposed his au-
thority to prevent Berengarius, King of Italy, and Rudolph,
son of Count Guido, from going to war with each other. It
is impossible, however, always to approve his character, his
weaknesses, and his censurable deferences.
125
JOHN X— A.D. 914
JOHN X, of the Cenci family, not a Roman, but born at
Ravenna, was a son of John of the city of Bologna, where
he had been appointed bishop. He was transferred to
the archbishopric of Ravenna at the urgent recommen-
dation of the powerful and shameless Theodora. Thence he
rose to the pontificate on the 30th of April, 914.
On the 24th of March, 916, he crowned as emperor Beren-
garius, King of Italy. On that occasion the emperor con-
firmed the donations made by Pepin, Charlemagne, and
other emperors.
The same year, with the assistance of that emperor, Con-
IOAJVNEvf -X- PP - R OMANV^
r
LE O * VI - PP - R OMANVS
LEO VI 127
stantine Porphyrogenitus, and other princes, he entirely de-
feated the Saracens, who for forty years had intrenched
themselves in the lands of Garigliano, in the province of
Lavoro. The pope in person encouraged the Catholics. He
despatched a legate to Compostella to venerate in the name
of the pope the body of Saint James.
John confirmed in the title of Archbishop of Rheims
Hugo, son of the Count of Aquitaine, who, according to Flo-
doard, was not five years old. Kings and people solicited
such favors for children, and the popes sometimes lacked
courage to refuse.
John had governed more than fourteen years, when, by
order of Marozia, wife of Guido, Marquis of Tuscany, he was
arrested and thrown into prison, where he was strangled by
having a pillow bound over his mouth, on the 2d of May, 928.
He was buried at Saint John Lateran.
126
LEO VI— A.D. 928
A T the end of June, 928, Leo, son of Christopher, of the
/ \ Roman family of Gemina, afterwards called San-
JL JL guigna, was elected pope. He governed the Church
with integrity and moderation seven months and five days,
died about the 3d of February, 929, and was interred at the
Vatican.
Albert Kranz expresses surprise at the brief duration of
the lives of the popes in this age, and he suspects that poison
was in frequent use. Yet John X had just reigned fourteen
years.
128 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Platina thinks that Leo reigned with as much wisdom as
the times permitted, when morals were so corrupt. He con-
tinues: "To recall the citizens to concord, to settle Italian
affairs still in tumult, owing to the rashness and weakness of
preceding popes, and to keep the barbarians from crushing
the Italians, such was the task essayed by Leo. And he
could not have employed his short pontificate more worthily
or to better advantage.
127
STEPHEN VIII— A.D. 929
STEPHEN VIII, Roman, son of Theudemond, was
elected pope on the 3d of February, 929.
He governed two years, one month, and twelve
days, with sentiments of kindness and religion even more
praiseworthy in that age than in any other.
He died March 15, 931, and was interred at the Vatican.
128
JOHN XI— A.D. 931
JOHN XI, a Roman, of the Conti family, son of Alberic,
consul of Rome, was elected about the 13th of March,
931, at the age of twenty years, as some maintain, or
twenty-five, according to others.
John was surrounded by evil men who had raised him to
authority, and possessed more of it than he did. He gov-
vmPHANV5^MII*PP*R0MANW
IOANNE^XI-PP-ROMANVJ^
LEO 'VII-PP -ROMANVv?
LEO VII 129
erned four years and ten months, always submissive to Ma-
rozia, whom many authors regard as his mother; or to his
brother Alberic, who kept him in prison from the year 933I
He died there at the commencement of January, 936, the
victim of the ambition of his supposed mother, and of the
cruelty of his brother. He was interred at Saint John Lat-
eran.
129
LEO VII— A.D. 936
tEO VII, a Roman, son of Christopher, was elected pon-
tiff against his will, and consecrated before the 9th
*J of January, 936. He invited to Rome Odo, abbot of
Cluny, to reform monastic discipline, and to rebuild, near the
Church of Saint Paul, the monastery that once existed there.
Fleury says that Odo received, under the will of Abbot
Bernon, Cluny, Massay, and Deols. By this disposal of these
monasteries it is evident that Bernon had not yet thought of
forming a congregation; it was Odo who properly formed
that which has since borne the name of Cluny. Saint Odo
was appointed by Leo VII to restore peace between Hugo,
King of Italy, and Alberic, brother of Pope John XL When
the holy monk reached Rome he undertook that reconcilia-
tion, and succeeded to the satisfaction of the pope.
Leo governed with mildness and integrity. Flodoard
praises Leo in Latin verses. This pope died about 937, and
was interred at the Vatican.
i3o LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
130
STEPHEN IX— A.D. 939
STEPHEN IX, a Roman, but educated in Germany,
was elected pontiff about the 19th of July, 939. Al-
beric, who had become legate of Rome, hated him
because he enjoyed the friendship of Otho, King of Ger-
many. It is said that in consequence of this hatred Stephen
was wounded in the face. The event is mentioned in Mu-
ratori ; but some writers doubt it.
In 942 Stephen sent Bishop Damasus as his legate to
France, with letters recognizing as king Louis d'Outremer,
against whom many of the nobles had revolted, though he
had been crowned king on the 19th of June, 936, by Artaud,
Archbishop of Rheims, formerly a monk of the abbey of
Saint Remi.
Stephen threatened those who revolted with excommuni-
cation, should they not recognize their king before Christ-
mas.
Peace was broken off between Hugo, King of Italy, and
Alberic, who had set himself up as prince of Rome. Stephen
desired once more to employ in this difficult negotiation
Odo, the abbot of Cluny, who had returned to France.
But the abbot died at Tours before he could obey the pope.
Stephen governed three years, four months, and fifteen days.
He died at the beginning of December, 942, and was interred
at the Vatican.
r
MARTINVvS* -II'PP- BOMANVJ1-
MARINUS II 131
131
MARINUS II— A.D. 943
THE name of Martin is given by many authors to this
pope, as they give that name to Pope Marinus I.
Marinus II was a Roman, and was elected pope
some time previous to the 4th of February, probably about
the 2 2d of January, 943. He wrote to the Bishop of Capua a
letter in which that bishop was accused of being ignorant of
the canons, illiterate, too familiar with laymen, and a rash
transgressor because he had given a benefice to one of his
deacons. It was the Church of the Holy Angels which
Stephen IX had just granted to the Benedictine monks to
erect a monastery. This pope ordered, at the same time,
that the monastery should be erected on the grounds of that
church, declaring that it should never be disturbed by him
or by his successors, and that the monastery should remain
constantly subject to the Benedictine abbey at Capua. Fur-
ther, the bishop, on pain of excommunication, was to cut off
the intrusive deacon from all communication with the eccle-
siastical offices. Marinus governed three years and six
months. He distinguished himself by his zeal for ecclesiasti-
cal reform, the rebuilding of churches, and the relief of the
poor. He displayed something of the pious perseverance
which had animated the pontiffs in the primitive days of the
Church, and he could not be surpassed in his love of estab-
lishing peace among princes. He died in the month of June,
946, and was interred at the Vatican.
132 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
132
AGAPETUS II— A.D. 946
A GAPETUS II, a Roman, was elected pontiff in the
/ \ month of June, 946, two or three days after the death
JL JL of Marinus. Troubles still prevailed in France in re-
gard to the see of Rheims. Artaud, after having crowned
Louis d'Outremer, had been deposed, and Hugo, son of Heri-
bert, Count of Rheims, elected in his stead. The new arch-
bishop was a child not five years old. Agapetus, to terminate
that schism and to restore the authority of Louis d'Outre-
mer, sent to Paris a legate named Marinus. This legate, in
948, held a council at Ingelheim, in the diocese of Cologne.
In this council Artaud, in reward for his fidelity to his legiti-
mate king, was reinstated in his see of Rheims; Hugo, his
rival, was excommunicated, as was Heribert, a rebel to the
king.
In 949 there was another council at Rome, at which these
excommunications were renewed.
The Holy Father called to Rome Otho I, King of Ger-
many, that he might expel from Italy Berengarius, who
ill-treated the clergy and even plundered them of actual ne-
cessaries. The Italian peninsula was at that time thus di-
vided :Lombardy obeyed Berengarius II and his son Adalbert ;
Genoa, Tuscany, and the Romagna were subject to a minis-
ter of the Emperor of the West; Apulia and Calabria, the
southern part, though infested by the Saracens, recognized
the Greek emperor. Venice amassed wealth by carrying to
various nations the commodities they needed. At Rome
consuls were annually appointed for the nobility; a prefect
I ACL\PETVv5Wl*PP*R0MAJW^
AGAPETUS II 133
was supposed to protect the interests of the populace. The
pope, while receiving the homage of nearly all the sovereigns
of Europe, was oppressed by the consuls in his capital city,
and by Berengarius in his provincial possessions.
Otho received the letters of the pope, and, after ordering
the King of Denmark and the dukes of Poland and Bohemia
to declare themselves his vassals, he crossed the Alps. An-
nouncing that he came at the request of Pope Agapetus, he
subjugated Lombardy, and demanded the crown of Italy,
which he called "the right of victory." Many princes had
competed for that throne since the deposition of Louis the
Fat. The aspirants were Berengarius, Duke of Friuli;
Guido, Duke of Spoleto; Arnulph, King of Germany; Louis
III, King of Provence ; Rudolph, King of Burgundy, beyond
the Jura; Hugo, Count of Provence; and Berengarius II,
Marquis of Ivry. The arrival of Otho proclaimed a more
powerful competitor.
Pope Agapetus II was to decide the claims of all these
princes to the iron crown. Otho, master of Milan and of
Pavia, had himself recognized as king of these provinces in
the year 951. But, to the eyes of the populace, the sovereign
power did not seem to be positively conferred upon him until
Wolpul, Archbishop of Milan, acting in concert with Pope
Agapetus, placed upon his head the crown of the Lombards,
which was preserved in the Church of Saint John the Bap-
tist, at Monza. Otho deposited on the altar of Saint Am-
brose all his ornaments as King of Germany, the lance, the
royal sword, the battle-ax, the baldric, and the chlamys. He
served the Mass in the dalmatic of subdeacon, while the
clergy celebrated the ceremonies. After the sacrifice the
archbishop addressed to the dukes and marquises who sur-
rounded him a congratulatory address in honor of Otho. He
then anointed him with the holy oil, arrayed him again in
i34 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
the ornaments that had been laid upon the altar, restored
his arms to him, and finally placed upon his head the crown
of the Lombards. This crown consists of a band of gold
about four fingers wide, ornamented with chased work and
jewels, in the form of an ancient diadem, and having in the
inside a band of iron of the breadth of one finger. Consider-
ing the chief material, we should call this the golden crown,
but the name of the "iron crown" prevailed, because it was
said that the slender band of iron which it contained was a
nail of our Saviour's cross, sent to Theodolinda by Gregory
the Great, as reward for her temporary extirpation of the
Arian heresy. Some authors maintain that the iron band
within the crown attested that a courageous people owe
their gold to iron.
Pope Agapetus sent to Saint Bruno, Archbishop of Co-
logne, and brother of Otho, the pallium, with especial privi-
leges.
Agapetus governed nine years and six or seven months,
with great zeal for the peace of Christendom. He died Au-
gust 20 (or perhaps 28), 956, and was buried in Saint John
Lateran.
133
JOHN XII— A.D. 956
IN the Notizie of Rome for the year 1844 it is stated :
"John XII, Conti, a Roman, was created pope in the
year 956, and governed the Church about eight years.
During that time, and in the year 963, Leo was intruded into
the pontificate. Being subsequently deposed, he again
IOANNEv^XIbPP-ROMANVvT
JOHN XII 135
usurped the supreme dignity on the 26th of June, 964, and he
continued to retain his illegal possession of it until April,
965. Nevertheless, Leo is reckoned in the list of popes under
the name of Leo VIII."
John's name was Octavian, and he was the first pontiff
who changed his name. John of the Conti family, grand-
nephew of Sergius III and of John XI, was elected, or rather,
at the instigation of some Romans, intruded into the papacy,
about the 20th of August, 956. He was then only some six-
teen or eighteen years old.
In 957 the new head of the Church, with a youthful ardor
more becoming a warrior than a vicar of Jesus Christ, took
into his pay the auxiliary troops of the Duke of Spoleto, and,
having joined them to his own, marched in person against
Pandolpho, Prince of Capua, who, supported by the army of
Gisolfo, Prince of Salerno, not only resisted the pope, but
completely defeated him. John was forced to retreat in dis-
order to his own territory and to sue for peace, which Pan-
dolpho granted, making a treaty of friendship and confed-
eration.
John, being afterwards annoyed by Berengarius and his
son Adalbert, called King Otho to his aid, as Agapetus II
had done, that Otho with his army might deliver John from
those vexations. Otho, before he marched, engaged himself
by oath to cause the restoration of all that those tyrants had
plundered from the Church.
Otho drove Berengarius and Adalbert from Italy, and re-
stored to the Church what she had received from Pepin and
Charlemagne. Subsequently, John, grateful to Otho,
crowned him as emperor, on the 13th of February, 962. He
was the first German prince who received the imperial
crown, and John, the pontiff who effected the change, had
promised Otho to entertain no relations with Berengarius
i36 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
and Adalbert : such relations, however, revived. Otho, irri-
tated at this, advanced towards Rome in 963. The Romans,
discontented with John, who fled, swore that they would
never again elect a pontiff without the approbation of the
emperor. Three days afterwards the emperor assembled a
conciliabule, in which John was accused of almost every
crime except heresy, and was degraded from the pontificate
on the 6th of November, 963. The antipope Leo was then
raised to the papacy, but the inconstant Romans soon dis-
missed Leo and restored John. It is affirmed that the latter,
on re-entering Rome, ordered cruel reprisals which disgrace
his memory. In religious authority he was strict.
On the 26th of February, 964, he held a council, in
which he condemned the Emperor Otho and the antipope
Leo, and the bishops of Ostia, Porto, and Albano, who had
ordained Leo when promoted to the pontificate. He de-
prived of all rank and of all honors the priests who had been
ordained by the intruder, stripped them of their clerical vest-
ments, and made them sign this declaration : "My father had
nothing — nothing, therefore, could he bestow upon me."
The end of John's life came in May, 964. He was interred
at Saint John Lateran.
In the East, the Emperor Romanus the Younger died on
the 15th of March in the preceding year. Romanus, at the
suggestion of evil counsellors, had driven from the imperial
palace the Empress Helena, his mother, and his sisters. In
those cruel times the East set no better examples than the
West, and Europe was apparently unmoved by this bar-
barity.
Under this disastrous reign, Genoa, which had already
been pillaged by the Saracens from Africa, was again threat-
ened with an incursion ; and the Hungarians, coming by way
of the town of Fiuma, ravaged Italy.
BENEDICT V 137
134
BENEDICT V— A.D. 964
BENEDICT V, named Grammatico, a Roman, of the
Conti family, cardinal-deacon, was elected May 19,
964, to succeed John XII, without the consent of the
Emperor Otho I. That prince then laid siege to Rome,
which, pressed by hunger, surrendered, abandoning Bene-
dict, and received the intruder, Leo VIII. Benedict was sent
as a prisoner into Germany, and delivered to Adalgagnus,
Bishop of Hamburg, who treated him with honor until his
death, which occurred on the 4th of July, 965, after a pontifi-
cate of one year and a few months. Benedict was buried in
the cathedral of Hamburg, and thence removed to Rome in
999, by order of Otho III. In various martyrologies the title
of martyr is given to Benedict. The Holy See was vacant
two months and twenty-five days. Benedict was a learned
and virtuous pontiff, with mildness and patience equal to his
misfortunes.
The antipope Leo VIII assembled a council after the de-
parture of Benedict V, which passed a decree granting and
confirming to Otho and his successors, as Fleury says, "the
right of choosing a successor in the kingdom of Italy, to es-
tablish the pope, and to give the investiture to the bishops;
so that neither patricians, nor pope, nor bishop could be cre-
ated without his consent ; the whole under penalty of excom-
munication,'perpetual exile, and death."
138 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
135
JOHN XIII— A.D. 965
JOHN XIII, a Roman, was consecrated pontiff on the 1st
of October, 965. His hauteur drew on him the hatred of
the Roman nobility, and Rolfredus, prefect of Rome,
excited a tumult against the pope, who was obliged to
retire to Capua, where, for six months, Pandolpho, the lord
of that city, treated him with great honors. In gratitude,
John made Capua an episcopal see.
He approved the acts of the council held at Ravenna in
968, which erected Magdeburg into an archbishopric; and
he convened another council, at Rome, in 969, when the
Church of Benevento was made an archbishopric.
On the return of Otho, John's protector, to Italy, the Ro-
mans recalled John, and replaced him in the chair of Saint
Peter.
The emperor, learning that many of the Romans had
shamefully betrayed the pope, punished them with great se-
verity. Peter, prefect of Rome, was tied by the hair to the
head of Constantine's horse, and there exposed to the male-
dictions of the people. This is no other than the cele-
brated horse of Marcus Aurelius, which now stands in the
middle of the square of the Capitol at Rome. In the ages of
ignorance this horse and the statue of the emperor were
found amidst some ruins. The populace persisted in calling
it the horse of Constantine, and on fete-days wine was dis-
tributed through the mouth of that horse.
In 967 John crowned Otho II as emperor, at the request of
Otho I, who wished before his death to see his son invested
with the imperial dignity.
IOANNEv? OaiI*PP-ROMANVv?
JOHN XIII 139
It is said that John was the first who introduced the cus-
tom of baptizing church bells, because he baptized one at
Saint John Lateran, to which he gave the name of Saint
John. That opinion is adopted by Baronius ; but the rite was
certainly in use prior to the reign of John XIII, and, on such
occasion, some at least of the ceremonies of baptism were
followed, such as the pouring of water, the anointing, and
the imposition of the name of a saint. The object was to
distinguish one bell from another ; or, in obedience to a pious
feeling, they sought to call people to church by the voice of
a saint, whose name was thus united to an instrument of
divine praise.
The Poles having been converted to the Catholic faith,
John sent Egiel, Bishop of Tusculum, to confirm them in
their holy intention.
He governed six years, eleven months, and six days, and,
dying on the 6th of September, 972, was interred at Saint
Paul beyond the walls.
The Holy See remained vacant nearly three months.
Under the reign of this pontiff, Otho sent to Constanti-
nople, as ambassador, Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona, to ask
of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, for young Otho, the
emperor's son, the hand of Anne, daughter of the Emperor
Romanus the Younger and of the Empress Theophania,
whom Nicephorus had married. Luitprand has left an ac-
count of his embassy. In an audience, Nicephorus said to
Luitprand: "I should wish to receive you well, but the con-
duct of your master does not permit me. He has taken
Rome as though it were an enemy's city. He has endeavored
violently to subject several cities of my empire, and, being
unable to succeed, he now, under pretence of peace, sends
you as a spy upon us."
The bishop replied: "My master has not usurped the city
140 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
of Rome by violence; on the contrary, he has delivered it
from tyrants. Was it not in the power of effeminate men
and profligate women? I think your predecessors have been
asleep, who called themselves Roman emperors, but were
not so in fact ! Have not some of the popes been banished,
others reduced to actual want, and not allowed to receive
even alms? Who of the other emperors has been zealous
enough to punish those crimes and to restore the Church to
its primitive lustre? You have neglected her ; but my master
has not. He has come from the end of the earth to deliver
Rome from the wicked, and to restore all honor and power
to the successors of the apostles. And then, when rebels
have risen against him and against the pope, he has pun-
ished them according to the laws of Justinian, of Valen-
tinian, of Theodosius, and of the other emperors."
The emperor and the bishop exchanged other words,
which history has not disclosed. Nicephorus said to the
ambassador: "You are not Romans; you are only Lom-
bards." The bishop replied: "We Lombards, Saxons, and
Franks have no greater insult than to calla man a Roman.
With us this name implies all that can be conceived of base-
ness, cowardice, avarice, impurity, and treachery."
The emperor's ambassador spoke with respect, at least, of
the popes. Whether the prince interposed with evil intent
or wise and Christian views, his envoy defended the rights
of religion, which the Roman Emperor of Constantinople
trampled under foot.
E
BENEDICTS 4>P*\T*R0MANW
-
BENEDICT VI 141
136
BENEDICT VI— A.D. 972
BENEDICT VI, a Roman, son of Hildebrand, was
elected pontiff on the 20th of December, 972.
Otho I, the emperor, dying at this time, his son
Otho II, who had already been crowned by John XIII, suc-
ceeded. The Romans, desirous of acquiring what they had
called liberty under the emperors and under the republic,
broke out in riots, persuaded that they had little to fear from
the imperial armies, then elsewhere engaged in obstinate
wars. They excited trouble in many cities. Cencius was
one of the boldest conspirators in this seditious enterprise.
As Benedict defended at once the rights of the Church and
those of the emperor, Cencius attacked and imprisoned him
in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, where, by order of the rebel,
the pontiff was put to death.
Benedict governed one year and three months. One of
the most furious in calling for the death of the pontiff was
Franco, son of Feruzzi, afterwards pope under the title of
Boniface VII.
The disturbances of those times seem to have caused a
corresponding disorder in the writings of the historians.
Some of them make Donus II the successor of Benedict VI,
while others make the former the immediate predecessor of
the latter. Novaes is of the latter class. The dates of the
events are no less uncertain. The papacy in those times was
lowered and profaned to the extent of becoming a kind of
temporal and very precarious post, dependent on the caprice
of the mob, as the Roman Empire had been upon the venality
of the praetorian guards. Those sovereigns of the moment
rose and fell ere there was time for them to be recognized.
i42 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
137
DONUS II— A.D. 972
DONUS II was elected pontiff in 972, with the aid and
favor of the counts of Tusculum, who were then
very powerful in the city of Rome. He governed
three months, with great integrity. He died on the 19th of
December, and was interred at the Vatican.
138
BENEDICT VII— A.D. 975
AN antipope, named Franco, who had caused Pope Ben-
/ \ edict to be put to death, usurped the pontificate, and
JL JL in a month plundered the Vatican of its most valua-
ble contents. He then escaped to Constantinople, whence
he returned in 985, to commit a fresh crime upon the person
of John XIV. "
Benedict VII, a Roman, son of David, of the Conti family,
was elected pope before the 25th of March, 975.
Benedict held two councils at Rome. In one he ex-
communicated the antipope Boniface; in the other, the simo-
niacs. After a reign of more than eight years, he died in the
year 984, and was interred at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
It is believed that Benedict occupied the see eight years and
some months, setting an example of all the pastoral virtues,
and ruling the Church prudently in those difficult times.
Benedict VII was a wise, prudent, and virtuous pope.
DONNVv? * II - PP - ROMANVv5^ -
BENEDICTS -Vn-PP-R OMAN VS
!
IOANNEv^-XIIII *PP*PAPIEN
JOHN XIY 143
139
JOHN XIV— A.D. 984
JOHN XIV, originally named Peter Canevanova, relin-
quished the name of Peter out of his respect for the
Prince of the Apostles, the first sovereign pontiff whose
name has not been taken by any pontiff, although the
name was very common among the Christians from the time
of Constantine the Great.
John was cardinal-deacon, Bishop of Pavia, his native city,
and arch-chancellor to the Emperor Otho II.
After John had reigned nearly eight months, the antipope
Franco, calling himself Boniface VII, returning from Con-
stantinople, threw John into prison, where he died — it is
doubtful whether of poison or of starvation — in the month of
June, 985. He was interred at the Vatican. The Holy See
remained vacant nearly ten months. The antipope Franco
died suddenly not long after the commission of his second
crime. He was so hated, even by his accomplices, that after
his death he was pierced with spears and lances, and dragged
along the streets by the feet, and left stark naked in front of
the "horse of Constantine" ; but on the next morning some
clerics removed and interred the mangled body.
i44 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
140
JOHN XV— A.D. 985
JOHN XV, a Roman, son of Robert, was elected pontiff
in December, 985. He died the same month, before
consecration, and was interred at the Vatican.
At that time there arose in Italy two great hermits,
Romuald in Lombardy, and Nilus in Calabria.
Saint Romuald belonged to the noble family of the dukes
of Ravenna. He introduced the rule of the hermits, which
enjoined fasting for every day except Thursday and Sunday.
The life of Saint Nilus is related in great detail by Fleury.
At Monte Cassino a monk questioned Saint Nilus as to fast-
ing on Saturday. The saint, who differed in opinion from
Saint Romuald, replied : "Let him who eats, not despise him
who eats not ; and let him who eats not, despise not him who
eats" (Romans xiv. 3).
141
JOHN XVI— A.D. 985
JOHN XVI was elected at the end of December, 985. He
was a Roman priest and the son of Leo. Harassed by
the tyrant Crescentius, who, with the title of consul, occu-
pied the Castle of Sant' Angelo, John fled into Tuscany
and appealed to Otho III. As soon as the Romans learned
of the step the pope had taken, they recalled him, so much
did they dread Otho. The clergy reproached John with
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JOHN XVI 145
yielding to that kind of favoritism which has since been
known as nepotism; in fact, he enriched his relatives beyond
bounds. Through the medium of Leo, Bishop of Treves,
whom he sent as legate to London in the year 990, the pope
restored peace between Ethelred, King of England, and
Richard, Duke of Normandy, whose discords were involving
their countries in war. Hugh Capet, King of France,
crowned at Rheims on the 3d of July, 987, was some time
afterwards deserted by the archbishop of that city, Arnoul,
a natural son of King Lothaire. The archbishop being taken
prisoner at the siege of Laon, the king solicited a sentence of
deposition from Pope John XVI. The pope not replying as
promptly as the king desired, a council was convoked at
Rheims, and pronounced sentence of deposition on Arnoul,
who confessed himself guilty and submitted to his sentence.
Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II, succeeded Arnoul in
the see of Rheims; but the pope having courageously pro-
tested against the condemnation of Arnoul, the king wrote
to the sovereign pontiff and urged that his authority had not
been invaded, and offered to explain the matter if he would
meet him at Grenoble. A council was held on the 2d of June,
995, at Mouzon, in which the matter was discussed. The
right of Gerbert was there held to be uncertain, and the
pope's legate interdicted him until a new council was held,
which was convoked for the first of the following July. But
the council did not meet so soon, and as long as King Hugh
survived, Gerbert remained Archbishop of Rheims, and Ar-
noul remained a prisoner at Orleans.
In 993 John solemnly canonized, in the Council of Lateran,
Adalric, who was made Bishop of Augsburg in 924, at the
age of thirty-one, and died on the 4th of July, 973. This was
the first solemn canonization. Credit must not be given to
those who state that the first was celebrated by Leo III, or
146 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
by Stephen III, in favor of Suidbert, Apostle of Westphalia.
The name of canonization was not known before the tenth
century.
The exclusive right of canonization, which the sovereign
pontiffs reserve to themselves, commenced only in the
twelfth century. Until then each bishop in his own diocese
declared the virtues of the servant of God who had lived in
sanctity, and no more was required to authorize the venera-
tion of the saint.
John is said to have granted the city of Ferrara to Tedald,
great-grandfather of the Countess Matilda.
This pope governed more than ten years. He was illus-
trious as a cultivator of letters, notwithstanding the rude-
ness of the time, and he is the reputed author of some books
on military art. He died on the 30th of April, 996, and was
interred at the Vatican, in the oratory of Saint Mary.
Under his reign the Russians, following the example of
their king, Wladimir, became fervent converts to the Catho-
lic faith. Although the Christian religion had been intro-
duced among the Russians in the preceding century, yet as
late as 940 they were guilty of great cruelty against the
Christians, especially priests, whose heads they pierced with
nails. So that the solid establishment of Christianity, and
the entire conversion of the nation, date from the reign of
Wladimir, towards the close of the tenth century.
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GREGORY V 147
142
GREGORY V— A.D. 996
GREGORY V was originally named Bruno; he was
, the third son of Otho, Duke of Franconia, Marquis
of Verona, and related to Otho III, King of Ger-
many. He was created cardinal by Pope John XV, and at
the age of twenty-four was elected pope, on the 8th of May,
996. Fleury says of him: "Bruno was gifted, conversant
with Roman literature, and spoke three languages, the Ger-
man, the literary Latin, and the vulgar [i.e., the Italian]."
He was the first German who was raised to the Holy See.
Otho having returned into Germany, the Romans revolted
against the pope, who had to take refuge at Pavia. There
he, in 997, held a great council, in which he excommunicated
Crescentius, of the family of the counts of Tusculum, who
had caused himself to be named consul, and who wielded at
Rome a despotic authority greater than that of the pope.
Otho marched upon Rome, where he was crowned emperor
by Gregory. Crescentius retired into the Castle of Sant'
Angelo, where he obtained terms of capitulation ; but Otho,
disregarding them, beheaded him. It was soon perceived that
the pope, a native of Germany, would favor the opinions of
his nation. At first secretly, and then publicly, he confirmed
these maxims of jurisprudence :
"The prince elected in a diet of Germany acquired by that
election the subordinate kingdoms of Italy and Rome.
"Nevertheless, he cannot entitle himself emperor and Au-
gustus until he receive the crown from the hands of the Ro-
man pontiffs."
Gregory, wishing to punish the inhabitants of Rome, who
148 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
had been opposed to him, and who disapproved of the influ-
ence exercised by Otho in public affairs, took away from the
Romans the right of electing the emperor, urging as the rea-
son that "Germany was the great arm of Christianity." The
pope ascribed the right of election, according to Villani, to
seven princes of the country: the Archbishop of Mainz,
chancellor of Germany; the Archbishop of Treves, chancel-
lor of the Gauls; the Archbishop of Cologne, chancellor of
Italy ; the Marquis of Brandenburg, grand chamberlain ; the
Duke of Saxe, sword-bearer; the Count Palatine of the
Rhine, who served at the first table of the emperor ; and the
King of Bohemia, great butler. "Critics," says Novaes, "are
not of one mind upon the question of who instituted the
seven electors of the empire. Some writers — as Giordano in
his Chronicle — attribute this creation to Charlemagne, and
that opinion is supported by the authority of Innocent III.
Other annalists deem the princes of Germany authors of the
method of election; others attribute it to Gregory X, some
to Gregory V (and this is the opinion of Bellarmine) ; and
others, again, attribute it partly to Gregory V, partly to
Otho III, and in part to the German princes. This institu-
tion interested the popes, the emperors, and the princes: it
must have been approved, then, by those three authorities.
That is the view taken by Dupin. Natalis Alexander (fol-
lowed by Pagi) affirms that under the sway of Frederick II
the princes of Germany gave to seven electors the right of
choosing the emperor. Still," says Novaes, "the right to
elect the emperor is derived from the sovereign pontiff, as
Sandini demonstrates in the Life of Gregory V, where he
speaks of the number and office of the electors."
In corroboration of the opinion of Novaes, what took
place on the recognition of Charlemagne in his quality of
emperor may be recalled.
GREGORY V 149
Gregory raised to the see of Ravenna Gerbert, who suc-
ceeded him in the pontificate under the name of Sylvester II.
The great erudition of Gregory V, his abundant alms, his
virtues, and the qualities of both his heart and his talent, ob-
tained for him the name of Gregorio Minore, Gregory the
Less; though doubtless that surname was more frequently
bestowed upon him in Germany than in the city of Rome,
whose privileges he had attacked. He died on the 18th of
February, 999, at the age of twenty-seven, after governing
the Church two years and something more than eight
months. He was interred at the Vatican.
At the instigation of Otho, a council was held at Rome, at
which the customs of the Church, already invoked under
similar circumstances, were brought to bear heavily upon
Robert, King of France. "Twenty-eight bishops, nearly all
Italians, were present. Eight canons were passed, by the
first of which King Robert was directed to put away Bertha,
whom he had married within the prohibited degree of rela-
tionship, and to do penance for seven years, according to the
degrees prescribed by the Church, all under pain of being
anathematized. And the same sentence was passed upon
Bertha. Archambault, Archbishop of Tours, who had given
them the nuptial benediction, and all the bishops who had
assisted in the ceremony, were suspended from communion
until they made satisfaction to the Holy See. King Robert
subsequently obeyed the order of the council, and espoused
Constance, daughter of William I, Count of Provence."
150 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
143
SYLVESTER II— A.D. 999
SYLVESTER II, formerly called Gerbert, a native of
Aurillac, in France, was the first Frenchman who
occupied the chair of Saint Peter. He was a Benedic-
tine monk of the monastery of Saint Gerandus, and became
abbot of Bobbio. Having been made Archbishop of Rheims
on the deposition of Arnoul, he was himself deposed in 994,
and afterwards made Archbishop of Ravenna. Some say
that he was of low birth, while others maintain that he be-
longed to the noble Cesi family, a member of which had set-
tled at Aurillac.
Sylvester, on the recommendation of the Emperor Otho
III, was elected pope on the 28th of February, and conse-
crated on the 2d of April, 999. Immediately, in an impulse
of generosity worthy of the primitive times of the Church,
he confirmed, as Archbishop of Rheims, his former rival
Arnoul, and then he turned his attention to reforming the
monasteries of Christendom. He gave the title of apostolic
king to Stephen, King of Hungary, who had converted that
country to the Catholic faith, and permitted him and his suc-
cessors to have the cross borne before them. He reigned
four years, one month, and about ten days, including, as was
then customary, the day of his consecration.
This pontiff was an illustrious scholar and a very learned
mathematician, and as pope he governed with both wisdom
and sanctity. The monks of Saint Maur speak of him in the
following terms: "A fine and subtle genius, a zealous lover
of truth and justice, he was the enemy of haughtiness and of
duplicity. His maxim concerning the ministers of the gospel
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JOHN XVIII 151
was this : 'He who is concerned in the saving of souls stands
in need of great moderation.' This pope protested that he
was ready to give up his life to preserve the unity of the
Church, and reproached himself only with having overmuch
flattered the great; perhaps, in fact, he cannot be held to
have been free from the fault of ambition." However, it is
beyond all doubt that his great ability in mathematics, in
rhetoric, in music, and in medicine, and the rapid elevation
that he so successfully achieved, were the only reasons why,
in a barbarous age, he was suspected of magic. On that
score he was obliged formally to defend himself.
Bishop Ditmar praises the ability of Gerbert, who con-
structed a clock at Magdeburg. So much for his skill in art ;
as regards letters, he propagated their study in the Univer-
sity of Rome.
Sylvester II died March 12, 1003. The Holy See was
vacant thirty-three days.
To him is ascribed, by M. C. F. Hock, the first idea of the
jubilee, that great invitation addressed to Christians to
make pause in the career of life, and draw from faith and
charity new strength to accomplish the pilgrimage to eter-
nity.
144
JOHN XVIII— A.D. 1003
THIS pope is styled John the Eighteenth, because
John Philagates, the antipope, who usurped the
papacy in May, 997, has been commonly, though im-
properly, enumerated among the popes as John the Seven-
teenth. He owed his elevation to the favor of the tyrant
i52 LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES
Crescentius. When Gregory V, expelled by Crescentius, was
restored on the demand of Otho, that emperor ordered Cres-
centius and twelve noblemen of his party to be beheaded,
and subjected the antipope John to cruel treatment, of which
he died in the month of March of the same year.
John XVIII, who is believed to have been a Roman, was
born at Ripagnano, in the diocese of Fermo, and belonged to
the illustrious family of the Secchi. He was elected by the
party of the counts of Tusculum on the gth of June, and con-
secrated on the 15th of the same month. He governed the
Church four months and twenty-two days ; died in October,
1003, and was buried at Saint John Lateran. The Holy See
remained vacant thirteen days.
145
JOHN XIX— A.D. 1003
JOHN XIX, surnamed Fasanus, was elected in Novem-
ber, 1003. He confirmed the institution of the bishopric
of Bamberg, in Franconia, erected at the desire of the
Emperor Henry.
Under this pontificate concord was restored between the
churches of Rome and Constantinople, which had been dis-
united in consequence of the pretensions of the patriarch
Michael Cerularius, who assumed the title of oecumenical and
universal bishop, which exclusively belongs to the Roman
pontiff. John XIX having forbidden the patriarch to usurp
that title, the right of Rome was recognized, and the patri-
arch Sergius, in its place, took in the diptychs — i.e., the ta-
bles of the Church of Constantinople— the title of the pope.
IOANIVE^-XIX-PP-POMAJW^
*
JOHN XIX 153
Some authors think that John XIX, towards the close of
his life, abdicated the pontificate to retire to the Benedictine
abbey of Saint Paul, at Rome, but modern critics do not
admit that fact. This pope governed five years and five
months according to Novaes, and three years and five months
according to the Roman list. It seems certain that he died
about the year 1009, and that he was interred at Saint John
Lateran.
From an author of that same century we learn that there
were then in Rome twenty convents for nuns, forty monas-
teries of monks, and sixty of canons, exclusive of those
which were outside of the city.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE POPES
Year of
No. Name Accession
69 Saint Deusdedit 615
70 Saint Boniface V 61 g
71 Honorius I 625
72 Severinus 640
73 John IV 640
74 Theodore I 642
75 Saint Martin I 649
76 Eugene I 654
77 Saint Vitalian 657
78 Adeodatus 672
79 Saint Donus I 676
80 Saint Agatho . . 678
81 Saint Leo II 682
82 Saint Benedict II 684
83 John V 685
84 Conon 687
85 Saint Sergius I 687
86 John VI 701
87 John VII 705
88 Sisinnius 708
89 Constantine 708
90 Saint Gregory II 715
91 Saint Gregory III 731
92 Saint Zachary 741
93 Stephen II 752
94 Stephen III 752
95 Saint Paul I 757
155
Page
3
4
6
10
II
12
15
21
22
26
27
28
31
32
34
35
36
39
4i
43
44
47
56
62
66
67
69
1 56 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE POPES
Year of
No. Name Accession
96 Stephen IV 768
97 Adrian I 772
98 Saint Leo III 795
99 Stephen V 816
100 Saint Pascal I 817
101 Eugene II 824
102 Valentine 827
103 Gregory IV 827
104 Sergius II 844
105 Saint Leo IV 847
106 Benedict III 855
107 Saint Nicholas I 858
108 Adrian II 867
109 John VIII 872
no MarinusI (Martin II) .... 882
in Adrian III 884
112 Stephen VI 885
113 Formosus 891
114 Boniface VI 896
115 Stephen VII 896
116 Romanus 897
117 Theodore II 898
118 John IX 898
119 Benedict IV 900
120 Leo V 903
121 Christopher 903
122 Sergius III 904
123 Anastasius III 911
124 Lando 913
125 JohnX 914
126 Leo VI 928
127 Stephen VIII 929
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE POPES
Year of
No. Name Accession
128 John XI 931
129 Leo VII 936
130 Stephen IX 939
131 Marinus II (Martin III) .... 943
132 Agapetus II 946
133 John XII 956
134 Benedict V 964
135 John XIII 965
136 Benedict VI 972
137 Donus II 972
138 Benedict VII 975
139 John XIV 984
140 John XV 985
141 John XVI 985
142 Gregory V 996
143 Sylvester II 999
144 John XVIII 1003
145 John XIX 1003
157
Page
128
129
130
131
132
134
137
138
141
142
I42
143
144
144
147
150
151
152
Montor A.F.A. de.
BQX
103
Lives and times of the .M78
~v7^
Montor A.F.A. de. BQX
Lives and times of the 103
Popes. .M78
v. 2
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